


The Space Between

by TreacherousThoughts



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Relationships, Child Death, Confessions, Demisexuality, Depression, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Non-Binary Frisk, Platonic Soulmates, Post-Game(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Requited Love, Romantic Soulmates, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Speciesism, Unrequited Love, Violence, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2018-08-27 22:30:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 218,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8419693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TreacherousThoughts/pseuds/TreacherousThoughts
Summary: Once upon a time, the barrier fell. Several things followed: monsterkind walked upon the Surface for the first time in hundreds of years, Sirius Jones received the tell-tale Words they were meant to be given since they were born, and one Annoying Dog led their Soul Mate right to them.Or: a story about soul mates, familial love, magic, and dogs.





	1. Of Roommates and Jerkwads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what are titles? what are summaries? here is a thing

"I'm _hooooome_ ," you hear BP's voice as he enters your shared flat, the clatter of his keys hitting the side table by the door, falling off to the floor, and summing up his mood perfectly.

"Hard day," you ask, redundantly perhaps to anyone else, but that’s all he needs to start grumbling about everything that went wrong.

"-and the damn prop director didn't buy any paint," he snarls mid-tangent minutes later, crossing into the living room after a brief sojourn to the kitchen for a box of Fantastic Amis sandwich cookies.

"What kind prop director forgets about-- _BP!_ " Your complaint is cut off when your friend falls onto the couch, flopping lengthwise across your lap and pushing a pint of air out of your lungs from sheer surprise alone.

" _Mmf mf_ ," his voice comes from his smooshed face, planted firmly in the couch cushion next to you.

"I know, but you smell like smoke," you argue, pushing at him again until he gives in.

"Sorry," he says as he sits up, unzipping and chunking his hoodie in the general direction of the coat rack. Your nose still wrinkles slightly, an annoying itch threatening to build in your throat, but the hoodie is far enough away now that the reaction begins to dull.

It's weird maybe, being really sensitive to cigarette smoke while not being allergic to cats, but BP is hardly a cat.

Sure, he has orange fur and a long, often irritated tail, pointy ears and a snout with whiskers...but it's all very coincidental that the monster bares a striking resemblance to felines at all. Maybe there's a distant relation they share, like humans to apes, but there hasn't been a lot of research done in the past two hundred plus years since monsters were locked in Ebott Mountain. In fact, humankind had forgotten them entirely, belittling monster-lore into becoming nothing more then poorly conceived methods of keeping children from misbehaving, and one wonderfully conceived holiday centered around taking candy from strangers.

But that changed when the barrier fell.

One month of military supervision, followed by one burned down privately owned studio, followed by one ad placement later, and boom! You’ve found yourself shacking up with a former burger flipper turned amateur actor that happens to somehow shed less than you do.

"Is that lint ball with the comb-over still griping about the bill," BP asks, settling next to you, and digging into the box of cookies with a vengeance before offering a share. Maybe his day hasn't been so bad, after all?

"As if he has loved ones to go home to," you answer by way of reply, earning yourself a crumb filled snort.

The bill BP mentioned was passed a little after monsters were given the go ahead to, well, go ahead and move into the cities, but found that a whole lot of people weren't too keen on the idea. Luckily, a lot of _other_ people had gotten the jump on their plot and had already been pushing for the bill to pass, one that would guarantee monsters their rights to work and live wherever they so choose.

Some people still complain, not caring if it means facing heavy fines, and ultimately losing their business despite the consequences. 

BP and your landlord had been one of the few who didn't do this, instead opting for the remarkable loans they automatically qualified for being "open minded", and thus opening their doors to anyone who wanted to be a tenant, monster or otherwise. Of course all the racists moved out and the landlord had to lower the prices of his rooms to be able to attract new tenants in a short amount of time or risk losing the building.

Whatever the case, neither you nor BP wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth. You needed a new place, and so did he, and now here you are, complaining about your employers together.

“Did he seriously buy a TV for the kitchen just so he could stick a note on it that said “thou shalt not be lazy”," Burgerpants is asking with a vaguely manic look in his eyes, and you’re briefly afraid that he’s having flashbacks of his own old job in the Underground.

“Maybe with a few more words, like “sin” and “damnation to hell” thrown in, but yeah,” you nod, feeling a sense of comradery wash over you as he groans out loud, canines flashing comically as his head hits the back of the couch.

“What is with employers,” he moans, then snaps his head forward once more, grasping at the open air with an agony only built up after five years of being apart of the daily grind. “That reminds me so much of my old boss. He always wanted the kitchen to be so damn spotless, but it’s like dude, I’m a _fry cook_ , not a miracle worker. I can’t keep grease pristine all of the time, it’s just not cost efficient,” his head flops back again, and then briefly forward with a pointed, “or good for my mental well-being.”

You laugh gently at the defeated way he slumps into the couch, honestly feeling a million times better after the day you had.

Because that’s how things seem to work with you and BP. Things just click. Which was really weird, because before him the longest conversation you ever had each week was either apologizing for bumping into someone while walking around in public or agreeing to your boss’ every whimsy with false-spirited "yes"'s, and "no"'s.

You also had the conversation skills of a squeaky door; you didn’t talk to people unless they made a move first, and that kind of social anxiety doesn’t fill up an address book.

Burgerpants, on the other hand, is as prickly as a cactus. His time living as a fry cook Underground with a terrible boss and a poorly begotten nickname had practically sapped his spirit away. Once he left all of that behind, he found that a) not only did he not have to wear a bone aching grin all day for a self-righteous boss anymore, but b) he could practically start off as a new man, a new person, a new monster.

So of course he let his inner asshole shine.

Not that BP isn’t nice to people who deserve it, which he is, but he isn’t afraid to tell people to stick it either. When you first met BP, he gave literally zero fucks. If you were going to leave, you would leave, and good riddance. But you stayed, and all the better for it. Because you warmed up to each other like white on rice.

Getting along with your first roommate in years was easy. You give him space, listen whenever he needs to complain even when it sums up to a few nonsensical yowls, and you never leave an empty carton of milk in the fridge.

Funnily enough, it was as if it was no different at all from having a human roommate.

When the night began to wind down you had to prod BP to wake up from his half-curled position on the couch, the monster grumbling blearily but otherwise standing up with a tired goodnight on his lips. The first few times you had let him sleep overnight on the couch he had woken up while falling to the floor, and it was agreed that the world fared better when a working BP was a well-rested one. 

After his door shuts behind him, you make your way to bed yourself, whispering a goodnight to the darkness before rolling over onto your stomach, and preparing yourself for a few hours of reluctant contemplation until you finally fell asleep.

 

As the door of the cafe closes behind you, the noise if the patrons dimming into nothing, you roll your shoulders with a much needed sigh. The work day was over, and you can finally think about getting along in the plans that you had made earlier that morning: parking your butt on your couch and mowing through as much of the new monster feed as you possibly can. Your workday had been a typical Sunday’s nine to three kind of shift, but a multitude of things could have happened while you were indoors in the back, and the customers were no help in getting the latest news. Out of every one new spiel about the Emergence there was bound to be six or seven recycled opinions on the subject, most of which you didn't care for. The monsters deserved their mountain, some would say. Others ( _cough_ , your boss, _cough_ ) called them a curse from God, that the father was finally punishing mankind for their sinful lifestyles or that "the devil" was doing it for him. More than one complained about the monsters stealing their jobs, and it was barely rolling up to three months. All in all, it did nothing to help the hours seem shorter, and by the end if it you were ready to scream.

Normally at the end if a day you walk home, maybe picking up a drink from a different and better store, but the chill in the air leaves little room for argument, and you have had more than your fill of humankind for the day. So instead you turn down the sidewalk, avoiding people as you make your way to the nearest bus stop.

The area itself is pretty busy, what with the upcoming holiday season. It’s mostly made up of small clothing, antique, and furniture stores, the retail pattern punctured by a restaurant or two, like the cafe you had only just left. You find yourself looking around at the familiar unfamiliar faces of human beings when you remind yourself that the monsters probably haven’t made it so far into the city just yet, or been allowed to anyways. People didn't need laws to scare away what they didn’t like out after all, they just needed to be themselves.

As you pass by one of the shops you saw a crowd if people in front of its large window and pause, peering around the group so you can make out what has enraptured them so.

In the window were several square and rectangular televisions of various sizes but they all showed the same thing: a news feed of a grey haired man talking about as impassively as possible about the recent peace talks. In the corner of each screen a small recorded video of the meeting between the president and the king of monsters was playing, but you couldn't make out what the newscaster was saying. Alongside the edge big the screens rolled a statement though: _president xxxx to meet with king of monsters on Wednesday to discuss housing development_. That was something, even if no one seemed to remember the king’s name to save their lives.

Quietly you hope it works out, but worry still niggles in your stomach as you pick up your feet and start moving again.

The stop is only a block or so ahead when you pause beside the sidewalk, sidling up to a building to pull out your tangled headphones from your pocket. For a moment you scowl at the mess lightly, before beginning to pull them apart.

"Look at its stupid head. Don’t it look like some kind of dinosaur, or something?"

Your brow furrows, but not because of the wires in your hands. Taking a listen, you catch the voice of someone else nearby, the mocking ring clear as day when someone responds: " _Hah_ , you're right! But what kinda dinosaur doesn't have any arms?"

Absolutely perplexed by this sentence, you take a few steps forward to the mouth of an alley next to the building. Down the concrete path, a couple of figures are hanging out beside a dumpster, all facing the same direction. You think maybe they’re staring at some trash on the ground that you can't see, but then one of them steps further into their little circle, and a sharp yelp pierces the air.

" _Shit_ ," you hiss under your breath, feeling your hackles rise. They were torturing an animal.

"You ain't scary at all. Just some piece if shit toy even its own ma wouldn't keep," one of them laugh, and you look over your shoulder. Should you get help-? You start to open your mouth, to go to grab the nearest passerby.

"Stop, _please_ ," and your heart shudders to a halt.

Laughter rings out behind you as one of the men copies the child's plea, and that's exactly who they're talking to, a damn child. You know this with more certainty then you do watching yourself now, stepping into the ally and heading directly to the circle of men.

"Aw, it's fucking crying -" one of them faux whines, but another of his friends look up, clearly seeing you approaching. He jabs the guy nearest to him with a hand still tucked into his coat pocket, and suddenly he's not he only one leering in your direction.

"Who the fuck is this," the biggest of them asks, albeit they all look pretty damn intimidating, and you nearly choke on your words.

" _S-stop_!"

One of them sniffs, some guy that looks like he should be in a frat house sipping whisky from a stolen decanter of his dad’s.

"What the hell you want," he huffs, not impressed.

"Leave t-them alone!"

"Or _what_ -?"

" _I'll scream_ ," you warn, a pitiful thing that shakes as you say it, but it stops the guy in his tracks. The guys look between each other, before one of them shrugs. You feel yourself breathe out, even before they pass you, the group exiting the ally, but not before one of them brushes you roughly out of his way.

Your heart is pounding against your chest, the sweat of your palms chilling as you unclench your fist.

It's the sniffling that brings you back to where you are.

Peering down the ally, you don't see any sign of whoever they had been harassing, until the sound comes again from the other side of the dumpster.

Carefully approaching the smelly container, glass and pebbles crunch under your feet, and for a moment the sniffling grows louder.

When you reach the far edge, you look around slowly, but a short distance away from the dumpster, not wanting to scare the hiding child.

"Hello,” you try, and there's movement, the small figure picking up their head and glancing in your direction.

They're small, maybe coming up to your hips in height, and wearing a brown and yellow striped shirt. They’re also barefooted, but for good reason: in each one of their toes they had a small claw, and their soles were covered in the same yellow scales that covered the rest of their body.

Surprised, you didn't let it stop you from speaking again: "Are you okay?"

The monster child blinks, and then moves to run. But not in the direction you expect, as their weight hits your legs and sobs fill the air.

You’re still startled when you lean down to envelope them in your arms, the monster child pressing its face into your shoulder when it had no arms to hold you with. They hadn't been taken, they just weren't there, and if anything that made the fountain of regret in you burst even more at the thought of how much harder it must have been to fend those men off.

"I-I didn't, I didn't mean too," they wail, and you shush them gently, saying it's okay, even if you don’t understand what they mean by that exactly.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually the crying subsides enough that you pull yourself away from the child, still feeling a burning in your eyes when they watch you, red faced and bleary eyed.

"Hey, it’s okay, I mean it," you begin, drawing on your pitiful wealth of information you had on lost children, most of which you had gotten from movies. "What's your name?"

"M-MK."

"MK, we’re going to call your parents-" you start, before they began to shake their head, their weak little body tottering from exertion.

You blink, unhappy. Maybe they're trying to avoid getting in trouble?

"Is there anyone I can call?"

"F-Frisk," they stutter, and you have to force back down the eyebrow you began to raise. It's an odd name, Frisk.

"Okay, Frisk," you nod, and MK watches as you pull out your cell from your pocket, the kid leaning down for a moment to wipe their face on their shirt, and your free hand goes for your other jacket pocket.

"What's their…," you start to ask, but then notice the flashing green light on your phone, signaling a new message. More than that, there are a few new messages, and more than one missed call, all of which are from your roommate.

(12:10) BP

_Shit, Jones a monsters missing and nobody can find them. We really need your help, pick up!_

(12:20) BP

_This is really bad. They’re just a kid and people think they saw some scumbags at the park recently_

(1:00) BP

_You can tell your boss to shove his fat head up his ass for his no phone policy this is serious answer when you can_

“My friend has been looking for you,” you finally tell MK, stopping yourself from reading the remainder of the texts or answering your voice mail as a heavy weight of guilt settles in your stomach uncomfortably. “He said others are trying to find you.”

“O-others?” MK whimpers, and you realize your mistake, quickly amending what you had said.

“Other monsters. I live with one. BP?”

“I-I know BP!” They gasp, still teary-eyed but their cheeks flashing orange with excitement. “He used to give me leftovers on the weekend!”

“Good! I mean, great,” you say, more than a little relieved.  “I’m going to call him and we can get you home.”

MK nods hurriedly and then freezes, sniffing a great sniff, and effectively pulling in a gob of snot that had become dislodged before it can escape the slits of their nose entirely. As you bring your phone up to your ear with one hand, you remove a napkin from your pocket with the other. The line begins to ring as you lift it up to the kid’s nose, MK pausing in confusion until you mouth the word _blow_. The kid’s snorting echoes loudly in the ally, but finally the other end of the line picks up.

" _Jones what the hell-_?"

"BP I found MK,” you quickly interrupt his rant, BP’s tone changing drastically immediately after.

_“Are you serious? When, where!"_

"A few blocks away from my job, but I just read your texts,” you admit with a wince, the worry lines between your eye brows calming down a tad when he laughs in disbelief.

“ _Are, are you-? Of course you are. Can I hear from um?”_

"Here," you stop talking, dropping the cell down to MK's level. The kid moves in quickly, getting the gist of what you're doing.

"BP!"

 _"Kid? You okay? Jones is a nice person, they're gonna take good care of you til' I get there,”_ you hear BP say, and flush in embarrassment, if not a little happy about it.

"I'm okay. I just wanna go home," their voice cracks for a moment, and you lift the phone up again to your ear, folding in the ball of napkins with your other hand and crumpling them in your fist before you pull your free arm around the kid again. MK takes the comfort immediately, pressing their face back into your shirt and part way into your jacket.

_“I’m coming-.”_

"Wait, it’s too open. I’ll meet you at the apartment, okay?”

You think that BP is about to ask why until hear a sigh on the other end, “ _Yeah, you’re right. Okay, I’ll see you soon_.”

After they tell you the place and the call ends, you slip the phone away, and pocket your trash.

"Hey, MK, this is how we need to do this," you say, brushing a finger across the mini-monsters face to erase a thick tear.

MK doesn't complain when you remove your coat and wrap him up, and dutifully falls silent when you pick him up from the ground.

Their tail pokes out a bit from the bottom of the coat, but your hood manages to cover MK’s horned head easily enough.

The cold of the air grips you as you hold him, and MK is not exactly light, but it's all you can do to keep anyone from seeing them once you leave the ally.

You make your way to the bus stop just as you see the vehicle down the road, rolling up with the traffic just around the same time you had expected it to earlier.

Life is full of lucky circumstance, you thought to yourself. Normally this would have been sarcastic, but as you enter the bus and the driver barely gave your bundle a glance, you can only feel grateful.

You make a point to grab a window seat near the back, but most of the other seats were full. Drawing yourself close to the window, you make sure that the front of your coat and subsequently the covered kid are blocked from view.

A small sniffle came out from underneath, and you saw MK peering for under the hood to outside the window. You adjust the hood slight so it didn't fall, but to where they could still see, unable to give into the good advice in your head that says you should be more careful. MK's wet eyes were just too wide and curious for you to ruin it for them.

The bus ride took a solid thirty minutes of tension, but you walk off without a hitch once you near your home.

The shops here are smaller, more family owned, and your complex sits comfortably between a few of the shops. Once the bus rolls away, you cross the street to the complex and sit MK comfortably down on his haunches, steading him when he almost topples over after the long ride there.

“Is this where BP lives,” they ask with eyes no less wide than they had been when the two of you were on the bus, and the sight of it makes you smile somewhat. The complex is one of the nicer ones, you have to privately admit. One of the things the owner had done during his borrowing phase was sprucin' the place up to look more attractive for investors and potential monster tenants.

“Yeah, we live together on the third floor-.”

“You _live_ together,” he nearly squeaks, and you’re shown that his eyes can really get that much wider.

“Y-yeah,” you stutter, being at the receiving end of such a star filled gaze a definite new thing for you.

Keeping close to the kid so they don’t trip on the steps up to the front door, you start to go slowly, picking up your steps when they insist on rushing ahead and scrabbling up the best that they can manage. They’re no less jittery when you enter the lobby elevator, and by the time you’re opening your apartment door, any earlier signs of trauma seem all but gone.

"BP!" MK shouts into the living room, seeing your roommate before you get the chance.

"Little buddy!" BP cries, falling to his knees and sweeping up the kid in his arms after MK goes running in his direction. You stand back, watching as they laugh, beginning to feel awkward when BP starts checking the kid over, MK going a mile a minute about their adventure.

"And I thought I could go into the human city and see what they're up to-."

"Why the heck did you do that? You had us all worried!"

"I just thought maybe I could see, you know? And tell Undyne if they’re so bad or not," MK tries to explain. The kid is smiling now, as if this was the best idea they had ever had, even considering what had happened.

"But you ran into trouble?" BP looks up to you at this point but MK just plows ahead.

"There were these big bad guys that ran me down an ally, but then they showed up-!"

You try to open your mouth to speak for yourself, but nothing is stopping MK at this point. "And they said, " _stop right there_ "!" They puff out their chest a bit and put on a scowl, speaking in a way that is supposed to imitate you, you assume, but which actually sounds nothing like you.

"And, _and_ -."

"Whoa, little buddy. Let's let them speak for themselves," BP interrupts them, concern written all over his normally grumpy face when he looks up at you. “Did you really run into some guys in the city?”

The city meant Ebott City, which was a strong focal point for human activity and residences as opposed to Ebotton, an off shoot that mainly featured residential neighborhoods and which was a much safer zone for monsters to supposedly live in. There was smudge of an area where they met and one could find a few monster owned shops, and that happened to be where your apartment was set up with BP. The primary reason that you had asked BP to meet you there to begin with was that human people tended to be a lot more bold and thus completely raciest the further in town you went, and the last thing you wanted was BP entering too far into the city to meet you but getting dirty looks as well as outright threats along the way.

"A couple of guys corned MK in an ally I pass on the way to my stop, and I happened to hear them. I-I didn't do anything”

"Yeah they did," MK interjects, jumping from beneath the palm of BP's hand. “They're brave!"

You feel a blossom of warmth at the comment light your cheeks: that had to be a first time that anyone had called you brave of all things.

Not arguing with the kid, BP cracks a smile. "Jonesy? Stand up to some bad guys? Now that I wish I had seen,” he sniffs in amusement, and you pout slightly at his teasing, unable to completely relax with a stranger in the room and after it was so soon after what had happened.

"It, it was nothing," you say, trying to wave him off. It's not that you aren't humbled, but you honestly felt like you had done next to nothing to deserve any praise.

"It's not nothing, man" BP argues, his eyes widening as if he's almost insulted by the thought. "Not just anybody is gonna drop everything for someone that needs help, and everybody’s going to feel a lot better knowing- _shit._ I mean, _shoot._ " MK giggles at the discomfort on BP’s face, but you stand straighter, thinking that something else must have gone wrong.

"W-what?”

“I’ve gotta call the others.”

BP dunks into the kitchen, leaving you and MK alone. Meanwhile, the kid is looking around with abject fascination, as if your living room is the most awesome thing they’ve seen all day. “I’ve never been in a _human_ living room.”

It’s the bad grammar that manages to break down the last wall of apprehension that you have around the kid, and a bubble of laughter escapes your chest, catching his notice with a blink.

“Do you like chocolate?”

And the stars just keep getting bigger.

 

An hour later and BP is leaving with MK to take the kid back home, MK with a smear of chocolate from the last of your Amos’ cookies on his jaw as he hops excitedly out the door.

When the door closes behind them, it becomes much quieter, nothing but the voices of the cast of Steven Universe on your television left to fill the space MK had left.

Leaving the television on, you walk to your bedroom, pushing open the door to be greeted with further silence.

“I’m home,” you mutter into the open air belatedly, dropping your keys in front of the framed picture on your small bedside table. The face on the other side of the glass says nothing, but you are hardly surprised: even on his best days, your brother had been a hit or miss when it came to conversation.

Taking a fresh outfit from your dresser you slip momentarily into your private bathroom to change, before leaving again, taking up your brother’s photograph before you exit your bedroom.

Walking into the kitchen just behind the living room, you place your brother’s frame on the counter separating the two and turn to grab the kettle from the stove to fill it up with water. After it’s set up to boil, you grab your brother again and return to the living room to plop down on the couch, sitting up again to grab the remote under your tailbone so that you can change the channel on the TV while placing the picture on the coffee table. The face of the news anchor for the channel you prefer flickers onto the screen, and at long last you allow yourself to flop bonelessly onto your side on the cushion next to you.

The day had been a weird one. It had started off with an odd dream about dogs playing cards and ended you meeting an underage monster for the first time, MK further proof that monsters really did come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes adorable ones at that. You feel yourself smiling gently at the memory of MK’s eyes shining as they stared out the bus window earlier. Only minutes before they had been bullied by a couple of assholes, but that didn’t stop them from enjoying whatever else the world had to offer.

When the sound of a whistle goes off in the kitchen you jolt awake, unaware that you have been fading into sleep at all. But as you sit up to start brewing a mug of Earl Gray, you notice the flashing light of your phone, signaling that you have a message waiting to be read.

Standing up and opening the phone in one go, you start to make your way to the kitchen, blinking at the sight of the unknown number and the first few letters that greet you on the preview screen. You take the time to remove the kettle from the stove before you consider reading it, but then your apartment door opens in the next room and BP unexpectedly walks inside.

“That was fast,” you comment, not bothering to hide your thoughts as he joins you in the kitchen to rifle through the fridge. Absently you rub at a spot your chest, distantly aware that it feels somewhat for some reason now.

“An old work buddy showed up to take him home outside, and I wasn’t going to complain,” he explains, satisfied when he pulls a jug of milk from the fridge.

“Are they okay?” You ask, meaning MK, not this “work buddy”, although you are curious about that. BP has never mentioned having a co-worker, if anything he seemed to be his boss’ sole employee for the burger joint they used to run.

“MK? They were doing great. Kid was practically out like a light when my bud picked him up to take him, and it’s all because I have the best apartment buddy in the whole city,” he practically sings, and you laugh with a roll of your eyes.

“I’m glad. I’ll get your tea,” you say, BP’s smile widens even as his voice grows more serious.

“I mean it, Jones. I’m gonna find a way to pay you back for this,” he says, before leaving the kitchen to head for his bedroom. You allow yourself to smile about this for a few minutes while you make two mugs of tea, both with milk, and BP’s with more sugar than is strictly necessary for anyone else on the planet. Just as you finish and reenter the living room, BP returns, sitting beside you on the couch.

“Hey, older Jones,” he greets the picture of your brother, further sweetening your mood.

It had taken you a few days to bring out your brother’s picture from your room, your admittedly strange ritual of sometimes sitting with it while you watched TV something you normally wouldn’t have done around anyone else. But after BP had seen the picture the first time, he had asked politely who that “s’muck” was, but didn’t sober up even once you said that it was your brother, and your deceased one at that.

It is a commonly held belief that monsters are just inherently good, or, it's at least widely known among less stuck up circles that monsters just naturally seemed more inclined to be decent people then the humans they live amongst. They aren’t pointedly rude or mean unless it's called for, BP being a good example of that, and were more often than not they're more willing to offer the benefit of the doubt more than anyone else.

You don’t have a lot of experience with this yourself, but it's all over the internet, a stereotype that sometimes humans take for granted or even advantage of whenever they get the chance.

When BP first “met” your brother he was nothing but nice, and ever since whenever the picture is in the room he would greet it like a good acquaintance, a fact that made you feel infinitely better about your coping mechanism for your brother’s absence.

So the two of you sat together on the couch, BP scowling at the “human lent ball” on TV as he made a customary appearance (you're starting to wonder if the guy is shown so often on TV just because he's laughable enough that it helps improve the network's ratings), and you at last recall that you have a message waiting for you on your phone.

(6:10) ???

_Knock, knock_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thing good? please tell. please?


	2. Of Stories and Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks kudos, thanks compliments!! much thanks! more, story grows stronger. story takes over small island nation. story cannot be stopped!!  
> (chapter inspired by the song "Home" from the Undertale Soundtrack and Olafur Arnalds' "Broken")

You have to double check your information for the third time when the bus stop rolls off, leaving you on the side of a residential street that iss really… _nice_.

In the night a few feet of snow had fallen, and in the busier parts of the city it all had quickly turned into gray stained mush. Here, it was different. It was like looking into one of those snow globes that you could buy while skiing in the Alps or something, with a little picturesque house inside with a chimney, a mail box framed with red brick, and windows with yellow paint to look like they were lit up, with white frost glued to every available surface.

The snow in the moderately sized yards were mostly untouched, save for with the occasional snow man or wall of snow for throwing balls. The trees were nicely trimmed, the road with hardly a scuff in its asphalt, and there wasn’t a single street light that looked like it was in badly need of repairs. Yeah, definitely nice.

Which was why you were sort of confused. It was terrible of you to think so, but a majority of the time when you saw monster households, they were on the worst parts of the city, and the city itself wasn’t always that great outside of the business district. Sure, when things first started out, a majority of them were able to get pretty nice places with the money that they brought up from Underground, which was 100% real gold coins. But after human beings got up the nerve to stop being assholes with just words, a majority of those homes were demolished. Burned down. Looted. Just, outright ruined by a bunch of speciest bastards, and it would happen again, and again, and again, until all the monsters had at their disposal were a bunch of sloppily thrown up, meant to be temporary apartments and homes that may as well be shacks.

In one word, the whole thing was appalling.

After you reconfirm the address saved in your inbox, you start moving down the street, and you only need to walk a block or two to reach your destination. The house is a one story abode made of brown and red bricks. The gently sloping roof is covered in a white blanket of snow, and in the yard, like many others, is a snow figure of some sort. This one is a little different than the typical by the numbers snowman, and has curled horns and a nice, green pea coat is wrapped around its thick torso, as well as a red scarf around it's absent neck. Next to it, and incredibly different in every way, is a squat mound of snow. It looks like someone had given up building it before they started, and the face it wears is made out of sticks and leaves, all arranged in a way that frankly makes it look like a clumsy knock off of the monster from the Jack Frost movie.

You shuffle to the front door of the house, overcome by the same rush of nervousness that enveloped you when you woke up that morning.

The dream from that night had been familiar, too. It took place in a room you've fond yourself in more then once, perhaps a bedroom of sorts, with striped red and orange walls, and a large bed with someone beneath the blankets. By the time you had woken you could not remember their face, as per the norm, but you could recall sitting in a chair next to them, reading from a book with colorful pictures and large words. 

And you _knew_ that book. It was one that oftentimes accompanied the dream, but it was more than that, too. Why would you dream about your own book?

What was worse was the night before you had asked BP if he knew anything about the person you were supposed to be meeting, but just mentioning their name had told you that it was bad idea to ask.

At first BP had just stared, evidently not believing what you had said. But then you showed him the text that clearly had the sender's name in it, and he had laughed _. Laughed._ What did that even _mean?_ But no matter how often you asked, he had refused to spill, simply too busy having the time of his life giggling into the couch cushions as your eyes bore holes into the back of his head.

As much as you try, you can’t help but think that his laughter fueled stubbornness was nothing short of ominous, and combined with your plans for the night, it had resulted in you being distracted all day.

You shake the memory of his giggle fit out of your head. There's no point in thinking about it, and you're just dawdling anyways. So, at last, you reach forward and pick up the curled bronze knocker on the door, and knock twice.

You think that you hear movement from inside, and swiftly pocket your cold hands, shifting from one foot to the other. Maybe this is a bad idea-.

But the door opens before you can even think to turn around. Your eyes meet the sight of a short entryway, a staircase directly across after a few short feet, and two curved archways that lead into other rooms flanking it's sides, but save for that, that’s it. Blinking, you tilt your chin downwards, and you meet eyes with a child. And a…flower?

“What the fuck do _you_ want?”

_It can talk?!_

Before you can have a proper freak out over _that_ , the child holding the potted plant gives the flower a gentle whap, earning an irritated, “ _hey!_ ”  and their glare deepens. The child ignores the flower, completely nonplussed, and gives you the most 100 kilowatt smile that you have ever seen in your life.

 _Ohhh noo, so cuuutee,_ you bite your lips in an attempt to keep quiet, your heart melting in your chest at the sight.

“What the hell do you mean by that, who _is_ this nobody?” The flower is talking to the kid, still clutching the spot on its head with one leaf, and your enthusiasm abruptly dies. “ _This_ , sorry loser saved the abomination?”

You’re complete perplexed as you watch the seemingly one sided conversation that is going on in front of you, but that does not stop you from being offended by an over-sized buttercup in a _pot_. Even your sensibilities won't stand for this.

The flower _pffts_ as if disgusted, and turns back to you, grumpy in every way it could manage. “ _Frisk_ says hello, and welcome to our—this house,” the flower says, straining their words in just the right way to make it known that they did not want to have any part in making you think that they're happy that you're here.

“Thank you…Frisk?” You say to the child, who nods with another smile, and things click into place. “You’re MK’s friend!” Their smile just grows wider, and distantly you can hear BP laughing in your subconscious as you enter the house. Was that the big secret? Frisk closes the door behind you and the flower directs you to the coat rack by the door, saying, “You can hang that rag there, or whatever.”

After you remove your jacket Frisk takes one of your hands in theirs, their little brown bob bouncing as they hurry to lead you into the next room. It’s way too easy to get pulled into the kid’s enthusiasm, and you laugh as they lead you along, passing a wide dining room table covered in a lacy white cloth, and entering a large, homey looking kitchen. The entire house is lit up with light, and it’s so warm compared to the outside world. Pictures hang on the walls in oval and rectangle wooden shapes, little knickknacks dot every other surface. You think that maybe you hear music playing, like the strums of a guitar, but you can’t tell where it’s coming from. The floor is glossy and smooth, and to complete the atmosphere, smells of roasted bird, and cinnamon fill the air.

“It's here,” the flower introduces you, deadpan, and a person standing beside counter on the far wall of the kitchen turns around. Not just any person, but a monster, and they’re _huge_.

“Oh, hello!” The monster says, hurrying forward to greet you with a smile on their muzzle. You can literally feel your eyes filling with stars as you take them in: from their white fur and flowing purple robes dotted with tiny, embroidered flowers, to the tiny curled horns that sat atop their head. Over their dress they wear a pink apron, which they quickly wipe their paws on before enveloping you in a warm hug. You’re blanketed in the smells of sweetness and flour, and if you were not already warm before you are now as you tense up under their hold. “It’s good to see you, oh, I’m sorry,” the monster backs up, but keeps their hands on your shoulders for a brief moment. “I let myself get carried away,” they admonish themselves, glancing away briefly in what can only be embarrassment as they pull their hands away into gentle fists.  “I’m just so happy to see you, dear child,” they explain, and Frisk jumps in place from beside you, jostling the growling flower, and not having let go of your hand that entire time. “Burgerpants told me all about what you did, and I just had to meet the person who helped my child’s friend.”

You have to smother the urge to tell them that it’s okay, nothing they could do could possibly be wrong, and that really, you didn’t do much at all yourself...but that would probably be weird.

“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself,” the white-furred monster said, scolding herself lightly, before straightening up almost regally. “As I said on the phone, my name is Toriel, and I’m Frisk and Flowey’s mother,” she lays a great hand on the human child’s head, who gives her the warmest, most sincere grin they can muster. Flowey just huffs, but if you _squint_ you think that maybe the spots where their cheeks would be are a little darker than the rest of them.

“It’s nice t-to meet you all,” you reply, somehow not making a complete train wreck out of your sentence, despite you being in a stranger’s home. It has been awhile since you have been in another house other than your own, a very long while. Plus talking to MK the day before had been your first real conversation with a stranger other than BP in also a very long time. But Toriel and her home just extrude good vibes, and you find that you can’t help but feel the most relaxed then you have in ages.

“I’m Sirius, also, like I said on the phone,” you finish, shrugging one shoulder in slight embarrassment.

“Like the star! Oh, you are just the cutest,” Toriel coos from above you, and from your side Flowey sounds like they’re about to hurl.

“How-how’d you know,” you ask, following Toriel as she leads you into the kitchen, switching off a kettle that had begun to squeak loudly. Most of the time when people actually knew about your name it was because of the Harry Potter character, and not even all of those people knew he had been named after a star.

Frisk lets go of your hand, and now hopes on top of a short stool by the counter, where they sit Flowey down next to a cutting board piled with green leaves and a single snail shell?

“Well, when we all came to the surface, one of the biggest things that we all wanted to see was the night sky,” she starts, bending over slightly to open the door to her oven and peek inside, the smell of chicken growing stronger. “But when we walked out onto the cliff side, the sun was rising,” she continues, standing up fully and getting a look in her eyes as she looks upwards that makes both you and Frisk smile a little. “The dawn was simply magnificent, a true sight to behold, and you could still see hints of the night sky above it.”

_…red and orange bleeds into the dark…_

You hear yourself make a slight sound, but Toriel’s doesn’t pick up on it.

“It didn’t last long, but ever since, I’ve just been in love with the sky,” she says, pulling on some oven mitts before opening the oven door again, and reaching inside. “It’s been so gray lately, what with the weather. It reminds me of Snowdin, back in the forest.”

“Snowdin?” you ask, although you recognize the name. A few of the locations from the monster’s underground home had made it onto online forums and news reports. Places like Hotland, with names that always sounded more fairy tale then real.

“Yes, my home was right nearby, in the Ruins,” she says, lifting up a glass container from the oven. Nestled inside is a brown mass that smells mostly like chicken, and the sight of it makes you bite your lip for a moment. Toriel must notice your discomfort, for however well you manage to hide it, and smiles down at you. “I remember that you told me that you liked the vegetarian chicken from the store in the city, and had it specially delivered earlier on today.”

You relax, glad that despite you having mentioned the night before that you had a meat free diet, Toriel didn’t seem put out at all about it. The fake bird she had in her hands came from a brand you had tried and thoroughly enjoyed in the past, but one that the internet had often dubbed as “f’uckin”, for obvious reasons.

Toriel sits the bird on the top of the stove and prods at it with a long fancy looking fork, and a butter knife, speaking to you as she checks it over. “I was so curious about how it had to taste. To think, fake meat! Humans are just so clever!”

The buttercup on the counter laughs, frowning. “Who the he- _heck_ would eat fake meat? That just sounds dumb,” Flowey comments, and you’re caught off guard when Toriel sends them a stern glance.

“Oh, hush. If we had something like this in the Underground, just think of how much better the food supply would have been,” she says, glancing back at him again for a quick moment. “And don’t think I didn’t catch that explicative.”

Flowey grumbles, crossing their leaves over their...chest? and looks away to a Frisk, who wears a cheesy grin.

“Let’s see, dear. Does it look alright to you,” she asks you, and you hesitantly approach the stove, peering inside the bird with her before nodding.

“It looks delicious, Ms. Toriel,” you reply, and your eyes widen as she laughs, a hand over her mouth as her eyes close in mirth.

“Oh, I haven’t heard that in a while! It’s just Toriel, dear, although I appreciate the sentiment. Tori is also what my friends call me,” she says in all honesty, and you feel the blush of your cheeks calm down somewhat. Satisfied with the chicken, she walks over to her large fridge, which is decorated with hand drawn pictures in two distinct styles: one bright and clumsy, filled with hearts and smiling faces, but the other in pen, filled with jagged lines or otherwise people-less landscapes. Strangely, these are actually the better of the two.

Ms. Toriel, _Toriel,_ you remind yourself, takes out a great glass bowl from inside, with plastic wrap stretched over the top she removes after placing the dish on the counter. “Now, would you do me a favor and take this to the table?” You take the bowl as it is handed to you, and look inside, double taking when you see snails in leaves of spinach and lettuce, and round grape tomatoes, and when you look again you see that the snails are made out of strips of wheat tortilla, rolled into shell-like shapes, with tiny gherkin bodies and split chives for antenna.

For as little time as you’ve known Toriel, this seems so in character you can’t help but find it adorable.

Toriel follows you into the dining room with the bird as Frisk sets the table for the four of you, Flowey actually helps while at the edge of the table, small green vines growing from their soil and spreading out to place forks and knives in their respective locations.

They see you staring, still holding onto the salad bowl and sneer in your direction: “ _What?_ ”

“T-tha’ts kind of cool,” you admit, sheepish for the first time around the flower. Flowey stiffens in their pot, before their frown changes into a haughty smirk.

“O-of course!”

Frisk sends you a thumbs up from the other end of the table, and your lips pull up automatically.

It only takes a few minutes, but your all sitting at the table, Toriel sitting in the chair closest to the entry room, with you to her right, Flowey to yours, and then Frisk, counter clockwise around the room. Between the four of you are several dishes: the faux-escargot salad, the imitation chicken, and a bowl of mashed potatoes. Bowls are passed around with “thank you’”s and “please”’s shared, even Flowey going so far as to be polite about it despite their harsh personality. You almost feel guilty about the all vegetarian meal, shifting in your unfamiliar but comfortably cushioned wooden chair silently, but when the kids dig into their plates with a gusto and a chuckle from Toriel, it goes away.

As you eat, Toriel continues her topic from earlier. “Although it’s been mostly cloudy lately, if I do recall correctly, in the spring it should clear up somewhat, and a friend ours, he’s been more so interested in seeing the stars than anyone else.”

You raise your eye brows in question, unable to speak with the taste of the fake meat in your mouth: when you bit into it, the skin came away in layers, and your mouth was filled with a delicious juice. You’ve eaten it plenty of times before, but it had never tasted this _good_.

“For the longest time in the Underground we only spoke through knock knock jokes told through the entry door of the Ruins,” she says, laughing gently when she sees the perplexed look on your phase. “I know! A strange relationship, I must admit, but it did put a smile on my face,” here her eyes start to look sad, pensive even, before it quickly goes away, which made you wonder if it had been there to begin with. “But sometimes we would talk about other things. He was always so interested in the stars, and even has a degree in astrophysics that’s been recognized by the local university,” she smiles fondly at this, seeing someone and some time you couldn’t. “It wasn’t often that he mentioned them towards the end, but he knew so much about the stars we had never seen until recently.” Here she looks at Frisk, who smiles in the same way that they did before in the kitchen, all warmth and love and understanding, before Toriel’s eyes land on you again. “It’s because of him that I recognized your name. Sirius, the dog star. The brightest star in the sky,” one of her hands reaches over and touches yours. “And it’s fitting.”

You blush greatly, your eyes snapping to your plate as Toriel’s laughter comes from beside you. You focus on trying to finish your meal, but then find that most of it’s been cleared already, startling with your fork in your mouth when Toriel makes a sound.

“This is really good,” she says, her eyes alight as she cups her face, and finally the last of the tension bleeds from your shoulders.

 

After dinner is eaten with not a left over in sight, and the dishes are cleared away, Toriel presents a pie that had been cooling in the kitchen under a glass lid.  Frisk holds Flowey again while they take your hand, leading you over to the coffee table in the living room across the entry way hall. In this room, there is a large comfy couch in front of an equally large front window. On the wall across is a great fireplace, with a brown arm chair with a yellow blanket draped across its top. A book shelf sits next to the wall to the right of the couch, and further beyond that is another arch doorway, leading to another room. Frisk has sat next to the coffee table before the couch, with Flowey on the other end of the table. Frisk pats the table’s end, and you sit down before it, legs crisscrossed beneath you as Frisk sits on their knees. Toriel comes in, seeing you all comfortably sitting, and places the pie down on a knitted pot holder, followed by several small plates and utensils. She leaves and comes back with large glasses of milk.

“I’m happy that you told me child that you did not mind eating cinnamon, because I baked a butterscotch and cinnamon pie just before dinner,” she says, and beings serving the meal. When her small serving knife breaks the crust, cinnamon fills the air anew, and your mouth practically waters when a slice is placed before you.

“It’s her best dish,” Flowey’s voice pipes up, sounding flat and distracting you momentarily, but even they don’t look dissatisfied when they bite into their share. Using a fork, of course.

Before you can try it yourself, a gentle ring comes from the room between the fireplace and book shelf. Toriel pats the pockets of her apron, and not finding what she’s looking for, moves towards the room. “Excuse me, child, I think that’s my cell phone.”

When she leaves the three of you alone, Frisk continues to eat merrily away, but you notice that Flowey is eyeing you from across the table. Frisk stops chewing, and sticks a tongue in their direction.

“I refuse to get along with anyone just ‘cause you say so, _Frisk_ ,” he snips, and you glance at Frisk, the word coming out before you can stop it: “How…?”’

“How can I understand Frisk?” Flowey finishes your question, apparently used to it, and goes on to explain in a bored tone: “Because of magic, you dimwit. Frisk can’t see or hear, like you other _freaks,_ but they can see with magic just fine, and hear and say plenty.”

You must still look confused, because he goes on, looking more agitated by the minute, although Frisk is still undeterred by eating their meal at all. “Surely, you’ve heard of magic by now? It’s everywhere, but you damn humans can’t pick up on the stuff because you’re so _weak_. Frisk on the other hand can hear peoples Souls, and see them and everything else, too, with magic, which makes them ten times less pathetic then the rest of your people,” this last part almost sounds like a compliment, which Frisk smiles over, but Flowey pointedly ignores them.

You don’t one hundred percent understand, but you suppose that you can’t exactly unless you’re were in Frisk’s shoes. And you had heard about magic before, it was what monsters were primarily made out of. Whereas humans could not use it at all, but perhaps once could and very well at that when they could, Monsters were more naturally inclined. Souls were something you knew far more about, those being incorporeal manifestations of the essence of one’s very being to put it very simply, but you had not heard much about monster philosophy on the subject, and rarely were they linked to actual magic in human conversation unless it was in a romantic sense.

The subject of Soul Mates are a widely well-known topic the human world, if not always a popular one. When a person is born, they come with a specific set of Words somewhere on their body, and those Words are the ones their Soul Mate would say the moment that someone met them. The thing was, not everyone had Soul Mark’s, because, according to the legend, not everyone was split in two during the dawn of creation. It was a complicated story, one that once interested you greatly, and now again especially since the monsters had come onto the surface. 

You reach unconsciously for your right arm, squeezing at the fabric of your long sleeve and the limb underneath. Your Words are there, tingling almost as you think about then. You’d traced them with your fingers hundreds of times in the past several months, and knew every word by heart shortly after you had been given them.

You had to think briefly if Flowey had a Soul Mark somewhere, because it wasn’t obvious to the eye, but you would never mention it out loud. It was a delicate subject with some people, and ever since monsters had entered the surface, several humans had found their matches in some monsters.

Toriel’s reentering of the room again ended that line of thought, and the woman sat down in her arm chair, settling in in a way that told you that she had done it a thousand times before, the chair conforming to her perfectly. “I’m sorry, dear child. That was the friend that I mentioned earlier. He said that he may be passing by later on tonight,” she says, and at this Frisk visibly brightens, making Toriel laugh.

“Now, it’ll be far past your bedtime by then, dear,” she admonishes, and Frisk settles back down again, albeit a bit more grumpily before, the first sign of discontent that you had seen on the child all night.

“Now, what were you three speaking of when I stepped away?”

 

As much as Frisk seems to fight it, they start to drop off an hour or so later, their head drooping and then snapping up to attention as they sit in Toriel’s lap, only for them to begin nodding off seconds later. Toriel stands up slowly, Frisk sliding off her lap and onto their feet while bringing a fist up to rub one their always-closed eyes. Toriel offers them a hand, but rather than take it, they walk over to your side, where you sit on the couch, and take your instead. You send Toriel a questioning glance, but she just smiles.

After Toriel picks up Flowey from the table, the flower having long since dozed, Frisk leads you up the front stairs, and you go slowly as to not trip up the child. They take you to a bedroom shortly down the hall, pushing open the door.

The room obviously there’s, with one large, twin bed covered in thick blankets. There is a closet pushed against one wall, a chest with toys overflowing, and more than one bookshelf, one of which Frisk lets your hand go of to walk over to and take a book from. They walk back to you, and hands it over, walking to their clothing cupboard as you stare aghast down at the cover.

_The Children Who Became Friends_

It was still a terrible title, but one that had once been, “The Children That Were Friends” before your editor at the time insist that you change it. Beneath the arched lettering was a drawn picture of two children on a starry hill, one of them human in every way, and the other furred with long, floppy ears.

Seeing it made something in your vision burn, and your hold on the book tightened. Toriel passed you as she entered the room, walking over to the book shelf nearest to the bed and sitting Flowey down, before leaving your peripherals.

A tug on your shirt brings your attention to Frisk. You don’t know how long you have been standing there, but they’ve changed into a long shirt that reaches their ankles, smelling like mint-tooth paste and Toriel is reentering the room from the hallway. You follow Frisk when they move over to their bed and crawl in, moving the blanket over themselves before patting the space next to them. You glance at Toriel for confirmation, despite your tumultuous feelings, and she nods. Toriel takes a seat beside the bed, while you sit next to Frisk, having to lay your legs up on the bed so that they can see properly, and Frisk unexpectedly leaning on your arm. You pause, before opening the book.

Your voice is raspy at first, as if it has hone unused for hours, but you manage to get the words out: “" _The_   _Children who Became Friends_ , by Sirius and Aludra Jones”.”

The hour goes by slowly, but you repeat the words as you have a million times before. You could do it by heart if forced to, and even placed special emphasis where it was needed, sounding excited when the monster child caught a frog with the human child for the first time, and sad when they felt regret for having interrupted it’s day.

It was a short story, about a monster that befriends a human despite how their families don’t get along. Maybe you don’t put enough enthusiasm into it, but Frisk doesn’t complain. When you finish, they peck you lightly on the cheek, surprising you again, and Toriel tucks them in.

Toriel doesn’t leave a light on when you leave, and closes the door, the last thing you see of the child is of them snuggling into their pillow.

You turn away from the door and follow her down the stairway, no words being traded until you reach the ground floor again. In the living room you sit on the couch, realizing too late that you still have the closed book in your hands. The sight of it makes you still, and you forget where you are until Toriel speaks.

“My child,” her voice comes, and you look up, something in you wavering, like the flickering of a flame on a candle. She looks sad, but not deeply so. It was as if she could see how you were feeling, and maybe she could? Frisk could see souls, and monsters were more attuned to magic then humans in your current history. It would not surprise you, given her kind disposition.

“That book is one that I’ve had for some time, I know it well” she says, and you have to look down at it again. “I’ve read it several times since it reached our Underground, and it was the first one Frisk asked me to read to them when they came to my home.”

“It’s been awhile...” you begin, but trail off. Toriel seems to understand, because she sits down in her chair, and speaks for you.

“It was based off the old story, was it not? About the war.”

You nod, swallowing thickly. It takes a moment, but you manage to speak up, “I loved that story. I was always so sad that it ended that way, I thought I had to write something for it,” you say opening up the cover. A small illustration of a yellow flower sits on the frontispiece page, across from the colophon, where tiny words about when it was printed and by who are written. Seeing the flower, you breathe out in mirthless amusement: what a coincidence. “I was terrible at drawing, but when my brother found out about my idea he said he would do it for me. As long as I wrote the story, he would work on the rest. He even nagged our father into calling a company to turn it in.” This time you smile at the memory, seeing in your mind’s eye your older brother, staring holes into your father as the balding man looks humbly down at his son. Aldura was rarely adamant about anything, unless it included you.

“They are beautiful drawings,” Toriel says, and you can’t help but look up, sharing your watery smile with hers. When had you begun to cry exactly?

“They are, aren’t they? He was always so good at anything he tried,” you say, and Toriel says nothing about that word, “was”. She doesn’t look at you with pity, only with remorse, as if she, a complete stranger, can only be sad that your brother is gone. And you, oddly enough, believe her.

Toriel moves over to you, leaving her chair and sitting down beside you on the couch, where her greater weight causes you to lean in her direction. You’re barely touching, the book in your hands as you flip through it. You don’t need a hug, you don’t want one, and she seems to know that. Just sitting next to you, in the silence, and letting you hold the book shakily in your hands as you try not to ruin it with your stupid tears.

Toriel does eventually speak, and when she does, it isn’t just to you. It’s to the air before her, her eyes off in the distance.

“I had two children once, before Frisk,” she says, and something in you seizes up. She lost children? Suddenly your loss seems less meaningful maybe, but then she’s looking into your eyes with a certain sternness.  “Be they sibling or child, it is what it is. Loss is loss,” she says, scolding you gently, before her eyes soften again, landing on the book in your lap. “The first was human, like Frisk. They fell to the Underground and my son found them. He brought them home. He had not mastered his magic yet, but fire burned in his eyes that day. He said, “We have to help them! We must!” And what could we say to that?” She lets out a breath, her lips curling slightly for a seconds worth of time at the memory. “He did not know that my Soul was already settled on the matter the moment he brought them in.

“We tended to the child, healed their wounds, gave them nourishment. My husband and I, we were helpless putty in their hands. In time we made a formal decision, but by then our son was already calling them their sibling.”

Toriel looks down at her lap, and you wait before she speaks again. “We made them our own, and we were a family. We still are. But one day, the child grew sick. It was so unexpected, we knew not what to do, but the healers could do little. Even I, their mother, could do nothing for it. I can do a little healing magic, but I had to try,” her voice grows strained for a moment, and this time you place a hand on her shoulder, and she leans into it, smiling gratefully. But the fists her hands have formed into do not loosen at first.

“One day they passed, and we were not aware. We woke, and found that our son was not beside them in their bed, watching them as they slept. They had left in the night. We looked everywhere for them, but eventually they returned. Walking in through the great halls of our palace. Our son entered our throne room with them in his arms. We ran to them, but...”

This time you can see Toriel’s eyes crinkle, and you see her withholding tears, but make no move to stop them. Just as she did not hold you before, you knew that she did not want such comfort.

“He was hurt when he came in, we could see that. We understood later, that he had left with his sibling using their Souls to cross the barrier then return. I did not understand why they had left, and we will never know,” Toriel says this, and then sighs a great sigh, her figure finally slumps, just a little. “It does not fade, it remains forever, that…but I know that our son, our children, they would never want this to weigh on us, like a ball and chain. Their lives, their existence, they were never meant to serve such a purpose. They lifted us up, giving us _reason_. Just because they died, it does not mean that should change. If anything, it should be truer than ever,” she sighs again, her eyes closing before opening again. “When Frisk fell to the Underground, and we finally left that place behind, I realized that. Frisk helped me realize that,” she says, before looking at you again. She’s smiling, and maybe her eyes are still wet, but neither is she being bogged down by her sorrow or regret. 

 

When you open the front door a sweep of cold gets in, and you automatically begin to shiver even as the warmth of Toriel’s home still presses gently against your back.

“My, my, it’s gotten chilly recently,” the older woman comments, and leans outside the doorway over your shoulder. The cold air catches onto her even breathing automatically, creating clouds in the winter chill that drift upwards until they disappear into the dark. “Are you sure you will be alright, dear child?”

Her eyes are kind when they look down at you, a full foot or so separating each other, and you can’t help but smile at her motherly affection. At the beginning of the night it had been almost uncomfortable for you, but since then you quickly found it relaxing, her voice and mannerisms blending into the warmth of her home, and the lovely taste of the food she made.

“I’ll be okay,” you reply, pocketing your hands while resisting the urge to pull your coat in closer for warmth. “I’m used walking.”

Toriel is somewhat hesitant, but gives in, leaning down in a motion that catches you off guard, even with how slowly she moves. Her great arms wrap around your small frame, squeezing gently, and suddenly the smell of her fur is clouding your nose. The cinnamon of her pie is there, but she also smells sweet, and warm, chasing away the cold of the outside world in a way that reminds you of standing next to a fire.

If she notices the stiffness of your shoulders she says nothing about it. “Take care, child,” she says, and pulls away before you can begin to relax. But her hands are still on your shoulders, and you can see into her eyes, round and welcoming. “Message me when you get home, will you?”

You nod, not knowing what else to say.

When finally the door closes behind you, and you step onto the sidewalk beside the road, you realize how quiet it’s become.

It had been growing quieter since Frisk and Flowey had been taken to bed, but even then the snapping of a fire could be heard in the living room of Toriel’s home, and nothing about the residence had been lacking in sound or smells.

Outside is different. The winter snow had long since blanketed the landscape in white, and all the houses along the residential street were silent, if only with a few windows still lit up to stave off the night. Bringing your arms in closer to your sides, you begin to walk, listening to the sounds of your footsteps as you make your way to the bus stop.

The walk is a few minutes long, and disks of light hit the pavement, flooding down from gently buzzing streetlamps that loom above you. Again, you find yourself noticing just how well kept the area is, compared to most locations where monsters had to live. Toriel had gotten off lucky, you remark to yourself, frowning gently into the fabric of your scarf.

Next to the bus stop a lamp lingers, the light catching the roof of the small enclosure and shadow hovering inside. You go to stand beneath it, but know better than to sit down; the bench had to be freezing.

Pulling out your phone, you glance at the time. Ten, maybe twenty minutes until the bus was due to arrive. You weren’t sure, not really familiar with the times for the area as you were with the other stops you used for work and home.

Pocketing the phone again with your hand, you settle in for the wait.

If there’s anything you can find yourself grateful for, it’s the lack of wind. With your worn coat and nearly useless jeans, Toriel’s offer for you to stay would have been all the more tempting.

 _Not that I’d take it, anyways._ The thought makes you frown again, but you ignore the feeling. Your unfocused sight undims for a moment, your attention catching onto something new.

Looking up, you see the soft flakes of white that had begun to float from the sky. Snow has begun to fall. Stepping out from under the enclosure, you allow yourself a moment of weakness, and lift your arm. With your bare hand turned palm up, you reach out, spreading your fingers, and wait, until finally a flake lands on your skin. It hardly moves to melt, the cold of your skin enough to keep it alive even with the warmth underneath, and more flakes follow.

Your attention to the snow breaks as something presses against your leg, the sudden weight nearly making you stumble. Looking sharply down, you’re unprepared for the sight of the four legged hairy mass that has propped itself against you, and the hand that had been catching snow is being licked by something wet and rough.

Making a startled sound, you move your hand from the dog’s mouth to the side of its face, your other hand joining it as you give into your automatic response to having a canine in your immediate vicinity. The dog’s round, black eyes crinkle in pleasure as you scratch the side of its head, you stopping for a moment to crouch down beside them in the snow. What is left of your personal space is instantly invaded, and you join the dog’s happy panting with a laugh.

“whoops!” The sound of a voice comes from behind the beastie, and you look up, jolting to your feet and sending the dogs paws to the ground when you notice the figure walking towards you. “sorry, he’s been going _mutts_ all day.” They say, and your heart begins to pound.

The urge to clutch at your chest comes, and your fingers twitch, but you manage to wrangle in the desire, dimly aware of the pressure building under your skin as the person approaches.

They are everything you could have never expected. They’re a monster, yes, that much is obvious. Because they’re strangely lacking in human skin, and human eye balls, and human ears, and even a human nose.  You had always knew that they were a monster, but not to be so within the realms of human imagination and yet not human reason.

They were literally a walking, talking skeleton, and that’s just so impossible.

Despite their bony appearance, they wear worn jeans and a white shirt that peeks out from a black, leather coat with a furred trim. Had it been anyone else, you would have wondered if they were cold, but despite the circumstances every inch of their posture says relaxed. Tension thrums from beneath your skin, telling you that you’re anything but.

The movement of the dog at your feet doesn’t draw your eye, but it reminds you that you haven’t been saying anything in the seconds—minutes? hours?—since you’ve been standing there.

“N-no, he’s cute, really,” you manage to stutter, blushing for more than one reason when the skeleton tilts his head slightly with some unknown emotion.

“quite fetching yourself, if i do say so,” they remark, and the heat on your faces grows deeper. What did they mean by that, you ask yourself, not really knowing what to do about the compliment.

 _Was that what that was?_ You aren’t thinking clearly.

“Is he a Samoyed,” you ask, glancing at the dog, who has begun snuffling at the stranger’s feet. He’s wearing converse, you think dimly, the strings loose as if tying them had been an afterthought.

“nah, he’s just annoying,” the skeleton replies, shrugging, and they don’t move to stop the fur ball as the dog decides that he was done with you and drifts away to sniff at a tree growing in the nearest yard. “but i didn’t get your name,” the skeleton said, and you have to wonder if that smile of his is as constant as it looks. Between his teeth is an unlit cigarette, the white stick hanging from bone alone, and you wonder faintly why someone without lungs would have such a thing.

“It’s Siri. Siri Jones,” you say, and then panic slightly a moment later. Did you really just tell a complete stranger your name? Even under the circumstances-!

Your question about his smile is answered when his toothy grin widens further, and you quickly move to take the hand he offers from his coat. “ _siri_ ously? i’m sans, nice to meet’cha,” he said, and your eyes widen. Has he been speaking in puns this entire time? How did anyone actually _do_ that? But then, how did skeleton’s walk without muscles? But you wisely say nothing of what you are thinking, feeling the hand in yours and finding it to be strangely warm, as if it was like any other made of flesh and blood. It is also softer then you anticipated.

Your hold may have lingered for a tad longer than it should have, because as he pulls away you felt a gentle unintended tug before you make herself let go.

It was interesting _,_ okay? Really, really interesting that this person- _Sans_ -in fact exists at all. You can’t keep your eyes off of him. There’s a crack that starts from his right brow bone and goes upwards across his skull, splintering into a jagged fork. His left eye socket is also damaged, a gentler crack at the near center of the bottom of the socket. A well of concern bubbles up from beneath the pressure in your chest at the sight. What must make up for his lack of eyes is instead a round disk of yellow light hovering in his right eye socket, a black circle at its center that may have been his pupil.

You hear a low whistle and snap to attention, blinking in embarrassment once you realize that you’ve been caught staring, Sans’ one eye locked on your newly reddening face. “when i said you were a looker i didn’t mean it literally.” He said, although you can’t tell if he’s bothered by your attention or not.

“S-sorry, you’re just really-I mean, I’ve never seen anyone so-,” you glance away and then back, feeling more flustered by the minute. What had happened to that calm you were feeling before? Did the dog take it when he ran off?

A gentle chuckle scatters your fumbling to the wind, and you nearly startle at the sound. Sans seems more amused then before, and the sight calms you more than it probably should.

“s’it’s me,” he says, spreading his arms in a lazy gesture, and you realize what he means. He must have taken your words the wrong way, thinking that you were commenting on him being a monster. You had, but you hadn’t: just the fact that he was _there_ was enough to rock your perception of your reality. But you couldn’t say that, even as he continued: “bones ‘n all,” he says, picking at his shirt for emphasis. “although, heh, there isn’t much else,” he said this last bit with a glance to the side, and you feel your curiosity widen again, overcoming your flustered state enough to meet his gaze steadily, or at least less shakily then before. “i the first one you’ve met,” he asks, and you could have sworn that you saw the brow ridge of his right eye raise a fraction.

“No,” you say this with confidence. This was easy to answer, what with you having spent the majority of your night at Toriel’s house. You wonder if he knew her, and fiddle with the edge of your jacket’s right sleeve, before silently scolding yourself. As if all monsters just sort of knew each other or something.

He does that lilt of his head again, and you keep talking. “I just came from a friend’s house,” you explain, sticking a thumb over your shoulder before returning your hand to your pocket. It only took a few seconds until you were back to fiddling with your sleeve, the Words almost itching on your skin.  “She used to live in the Underground,”  you say, biting your lip for a moment and seeing Sans’ eye waver for the slightest second. You didn’t have anything in her teeth, do you? Feeling self-conscious, you halt the tic in its tracks. “I j-just-,” but you are cut off by a trilling from Sans’ pocket, and his hand pulls out a phone, an old flip device by the looks of it.

“uh, heh, looks like i’m called for,” he states, looking apologetic, and you feel herself smile, silently saying it was totally okay. Sans pulls out his phone, flipping it open and bringing it up to where his left ear would be if he had one. “hey, s’cool. i’m jus’ talkin’ to a friend,” he said to the person on the other end, before baffling you with a wink. “i’ll be there in a jiff,” he finishes, snapping the phone shut before pocketing it away again. “that’s my que.”

A prick of regret starts in your chest. He was already leaving? But you tell yourself to keep it out of your voice when you reply. “I-it was nice meeting you,” you say honestly, grateful that you manage to admit that, but a sense of urgency starts to swallow you on the inside. The inscription on your arm practically feels like its dancing, yelling at you to show him, to ask if your Words were somewhere on him as well, hidden away out of sight.

“heh, be seeing you around, siri,” Sans says in goodbye, and you feel yourself falter as you watch him. He takes a few steps backwards, and the question is in your throat, before a thought comes to you. You let go of your sleeve, and the distance lengthens, Sans not turning around until there was a few feet between you and him. You watch him go, entranced despite your failing heart, and the dog from earlier bounds across the street from where it has been rolling in a snow drift when the skeleton whistles for the dog’s attention.

Even so Sans looks back again, over his shoulder, giving a lazy wave that you quickly fumble to return, and he turns his head again. You watch him leave, growing smaller in the distance, until the sound of something large takes your attention away.

A bus has stopped beside you on the road, and you have to blink for a moment, staring dumbly at the open door until you step inside, into light. The bus driver says nothing, only looking tired as you walk to the end and the vehicle beings moving again before you can sit down.

You look over your shoulder, out the back of the bus window, but with the light you can’t see anything but your own reflection.

Looking down at your lap, you finally allow yourself to tug at your jacket sleeve.

You slide it up as far as the material allows. It was something she had done a million times and expected to do a million times more, but there was a different feeling alongside the heaviness in your heart as you Siri let your left thumb brush over the words engraved into your skin.

_* sorry, he’s been going mutts all day_

He had said nothing, nothing at all about his Soul Mark. He didn’t startle when you first spoke to him, or remove his jacket or pants or anything to show you Word for Word what you had said upon first encountering him beside the bus stop.

Maybe it wasn’t like the movies? Maybe he had just forgotten? Maybe he had seen you and didn’t care-.

That pressure that must have been your Soul begins to hurt.

Maybe he doesn’t have your Words at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G original owner: borurou.tumblr.com  
> last bit, really tough. originally one-shot. now, part of whole story!


	3. Of a Happy Run-In and a Not So Happy One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stressful night. not best chapter, but working on thing helps. hope it helps readers too?

_Long ago, when the world was still yet new, the gods reached down to the earth and took hold in their hands as many of the people as they were able. Taking the limits of their Souls between their fingers, they scattered them into ribbons, and tossed their remains to the winds. From that point onward, there existed two: those who would forever find within them their Souls whole, and those who should forever search for the pieces taken away._

You close the book, and set it back up on the store shelf where you had taken it previously, the binding making a gentle thud against the polished wood. Sighing softly, all you can do is stand there, your eyes skimming along those remaining in the row and barely reading the titles before you.

It was a story you had read a dozen times, the creation of the Soul Mates, in a dozen different formats, from a hundred different authors, and taken a thousand different ways.

Some said that “the people” were split due to their sins, others said it was due to an awful evil spell done by a vicious mage (an excuse that was becoming more popular with how often individuals were revealing that they had found their Mates in monsterkind). Others said it wasn’t due to lack of faith, or an abuse of magic, but that Souls and their happenstance on whether they were “Whole” or “Fractured” had always been and always would be.

You had read and reread stories, intensive studies, and personal accounts on the subject a dozen times as a child, becoming decidedly less determined to find out _why_ you were born without your Words as you grew older.

That drive came back when the monsters were freed from the Underground.

And then abruptly ground to a begrudging, painful crawl when a certain skeleton didn’t so much as bat an eye (which he could in fact do, _somehow_ ), when you spoke your Words to him. Well, not your Words, but his, the ones he was supposed to be born with and you were met to utter, and thus they were supposed to be on his arm. Or leg. Or tibia. _Or something_.

Worrying your lip as you stand there, you admit that despite the disappointment—self-deprecating, sleep-stealing, sigh-ripping disappointment-- it has not stopped you from thinking about him.

And think about him, you did. Incessantly.

All through the night when you couldn’t find rest, all through work the next day until even Cindy at the front counter commented, all through the night after that, and then this morning. And technically now, as you become even less aware of the books in front of your face.

You just keep seeing that smile of his (was it small or were you seeing things? was it more polite then real? did it really grow any bigger when you kept talking to him?).

You keep thinking about the way his voice sounds (it’s deep, and maybe a little tired. is he getting not enough sleep? did he have to make your bones shiver like that? did you have to keep thinking about bones, his or yours?)

You keep on, and on, until the image and sound of him in your head should become blurry and nonsensical with over-examination. But it doesn’t, it stays as clear and real as the few scant minutes that you stood in front of him two nights ago, your heart pounding under your skin as hard and fast as it is now, standing  in the middle of a public place, practically having a wet dream about a guy you did not know.

Shoving your thoughts of Sans to the side, as if that were possible really, you start to head to the front of the store

and nearly topple head over heels to the ground.

There’s a yelp, and you’re not sure if it came from you, or the person in front of you, because you’re backing away with flailing limbs with probably the exact same expression that the yellow reptile in front of you has. Shock, followed by extreme embarrassment, followed by the worst series of apologies any helpless bystander has had the luck to listen to.

“I’m so, _so_ sar _-sorry_ ” “I should have been watching, _I mean_ ” “ _No, no_ , it was _me_ , “I-It was my fault-“

You both stop babbling for a moment and just stand there, waiting for the other one to talk before you both open your mouths again.

“I just-.” “It was-.“

You both stop talking immediately.

And the strangest thing happens.

Maybe it was the roller-coaster of emotions that you had been going through for the past three days. Maybe it was the lack of sleep you had been getting that entire time. Maybe it was the ink from the books you had held that day, the combination of them and all of the other material you had chewed through that somehow came together in a brief temporary, insanity inducing moment that made the old wives tale about ink being bad for you so, _so_ true.

Whatever it was exactly, it made you laugh. _Hard_.

You’re not sure if you look like a complete idiot or not but right then you don’t care. You don’t notice that the monster in front of you has also begun to laugh, but when you do it just makes it even funnier.

Someone from the front of the stores asks if you’re okay, and by the time that happens, you’re nearly out of breath, doubled over with your cheek bones aching for days.

“ _Oh my goodness, I’m so, so sorry_ -,” the monster in front of you tries again, and you shake your head, still smiling.

“No, I wasn’t paying attention,” you argue back, waving a hand, but before you can start to say anything again, you both pause and seem to simultaneously notice that everyone else in the store, from the kids section to the  guy at the front is staring, and that it’s absolutely quiet.

“We should go,” you mutter, and the monster nods, swiftly agreeing.

When the two of you leave the book store, the bell overhead jangling as you go, the sound of the street hits with startling clarity. The bookstore was pretty far out of the city, but when clamor of the outside world is compared with the frankly embarrassing as hell atmosphere you just walked out of makes it all sound louder than really is. You both step out of the way of the front door, and you’re self-conscious again, shuffling your feet in a way that belays the nervous shivers in your limbs as you attempt to keep cool, but fail.

“I am sorry,” you start, but the monster is shaking their head, a light blush painting their cheeks that makes her own embarrassment look frankly endearing.

“No, I wa-was so caught up in my research, and, and I’m so _short_ , it’s understandable that you didn’t see me,” the monster says. With anyone else this may have been sarcastic, rude even, but with them it’s anything but. If anything it sounds self-deprecating, as if their stature, which is really isn’t much smaller then yourself, is entirely their fault. For a moment you stand still, realizing that you’re in the presence of someone that reminds you of yourself in so many ways, and that you’ve been nervous this entire time, but not in any other way you have with other strangers you’ve run into. You were a little eager, nervous yes, but in a good way.

“I’m Siri,” you start, then think to remove your hand from your jacket, offering it to her. She blinks, setting her bag down, one that you had failed to notice until then during all of the excitement. “Sirius Jones.”

The monster pauses, her hand half-way to your hand, which she has been staring at in befuddlement, before it joins her other hand in cupping her face. “Y- _you’re_ Sirius Jones? _The_ Sirius Jones?”

Your previous new level of confidence falters, and you take your hand back, feeling worried. “Y-yes?” _What did you do_?

“I’ve heard all about you!” The monster says all of a sudden, her blush returning with a gusto. “Y-you’re the one that beat up those men who were harassing a monster child just the other day!”

_Wait, what?_

“Wait, what,” you question out loud, now thoroughly confused.

“Oh, I’m, I’m being rude again,” the monster sputters, and sticks out her hand for you to carefully shake. “I’m A-Alphys. I was, well is, currently, I mean, the royal scientist. The queen told me all about you!”

_Queen?_

“What queen?”

 

“Oh, dearie, did you forget something?” The spider-woman from behind the counter asks, and you feel your previously loose jaw click shut at the sight of her.

“N-no, thank you, Ms. Muffet,” Alphys replies shakily, continuing on into the shop appropriately named “Muffet’s Bakery”. You follow her to a table and chair setting on the right side of the store, slipping into your own seat as Doctor Alphys sits down and places her square bag on the table. Not looking at the spider woman behind the counter (who is very _, very_ pretty, with her purple dress shirt and vest, and her white laced under shirt and matching bows in her long, dark hair-- _you need to stop)_ you examine the shop around you. It’s you’re first time being in a monster owned location, and you’re thoroughly impressed. Not that you shouldn’t be, but everything is so elegantly designed, from the swirling patterns on the wooden counter on the other side of the shop, to the tiled floor that almost, but very well could be, white marble. Even the spider that hangs from the ceiling to take your order has a tiny little bow under their chin, and zips right back up to the network of webbing above your head with grace. For the time being, you’re too distracted by the setting then to think about what you had heard outside the book shop, until you see Doctor Alphys fidgeting, and you start to fidget yourself.

“You said that Ms. Toriel, _Toriel_ , is a queen? L-like,” you stop, hating the obvious discomfort in your voice as you speak. “The queen to the king? King Asgore?”

Alphys nods up and down, the glasses on her snout jostling slightly. “Y-yes. O-or they were, but many years ago, they, they decided to no longer see each other,” she says, looking uncertainty down at the smooth gold, purple, and black table beneath your hands before returning your gaze again, adjusting her glasses as she does so. “I-I think it’s what humans--humankind calls a divorce?”

You nod, mouthing a soft “ah”, as if this explained everything. But it didn’t. Because two nights ago you sat down and ate dinner with a queen, you nearly cried like a baby in front of a _queen._ Groaning softly, all you want to do is lay your forehead down and close your eyes, block out the week’s events, and maybe the next year’s if you were able.

Alphys sees the look on your face, but misinterprets it immediately. “D-don’t worry! I, I think that despite their relationship, the king is more than aware of the proud act of bravery that you did.”

A knot of guilt instantly springs to your throat, and you have to swallow roughly around it when two spiders arrive with your orders. They lower from the ceiling with your hot milk chocolate with spider foam and Alphys’ spider –cider, and you manage to croak out a thank you before they leave again.

Not knowing what to do with yourself, you cup your warm drink silently, staring at the design of the neatly dressed spider on the lid rather than watching Alphys as you speak up. “Doctor Alphys, I, I didn’t do any of that. I mean, I helped, I think? But I didn’t beat up anyone, or _anything_ like that.”

You don’t want to see the disappointment on Doctor Alphys’ face that must surely be there, but you hear the hesitation in her voice when she did reply: “B-but you did help. You, you stood up to the bad guys,” she’s saying, and you begin to raise your chin. “Someone was in trouble, and, and you did something about it. And it _worked_. You _are_ a hero.”

Her eyes are bright behind her glasses. Her clawed fists are clinched, and she looks so, so confident right there. More so then ever before in the short time that you’ve known her. And maybe you almost believe her, a sweep of heat in your face filling your cheeks, one you try to hide with a dunk of your head.

If you concentrate, you think that maybe your soul is thrumming from beneath your skin, and you do feel a little brave.

 

You spend the reminder of your time in the coffee shop actually getting to know Doctor Alphys. It takes several minutes before the two of you really start to relax around each other, or maybe that’s just you, but eventually you learn that she had a girlfriend. Her girlfriend is tall, and brave, and strong in every way, and the way the Doctor speaks about her makes you jealous to be with someone like the doctor, but it also makes you smile with how genuine it is. Maybe they were Soul Mates, but you didn’t ask.

You also learn that she likes literature, no, she likes comic books, well _, no_ she quite honestly liked anime and she smiles in the cutest way when she finds out that you do to. You had watched a few shows or a dozen growing up, eating up anything on television or online you could find when other children would be outside with their friends. It may have been a little lame, at the time, but now it acts as the supporting structure for your budding _something_ with the monster before you. And you enjoy yourself, liking the glee on her face when she talks about how much more she’s managed to get her hands on since coming to the surface, and that her very favorite of them all, _Mew Mew: Kissy Cutie_ has more than one  spin-off.

As you leave the shop later you both leave a large tip, you waving off Alphys’ offer to pay full as you mark down a compliment for Muffet about her dress. When you step outside, you think that you see her behind the counter, holding the receipt and smiling prettily at what you had written, and despite any effort in chiding yourself, you feel a flush of warmth at this small accomplishment.

You both stand outside for a moment, any following awkwardness that could have come interrupted by a pinking in Alphys’ pocket, and she pulls out a cell phone decorated in stars and pink hearts with an apologetic look.

“T-that’s my co-worker. He sent me out to get donuts, but I completely forgot,” she explains, and you glance at the bag she’s been toting the entire time, noting again the square shape it is in, and the guilt returns.

“I-I’m sorry.”

“N-no! I was late an hour ago, in, in the book store,” she says, closing her phone and starting to tuck it away before she stops, holding her phone in her hands. The blush is back in her cheeks, and you think that maybe you have an idea as to what she’s going to ask before she does. ”Do you think that maybe I can, we can trade numbers? It’s just, I really think it would be cool, if we could trade opinions on the new series coming up?” Alphys is looking up at you apprehensively, and you pull out your phone right away.

“S-sure,” you try to say smoothly, but fail. When she says her number and you reply with a text, you glance over the list of names in your contacts. They’ve grown two in the past three days, and there were more numbers monsters now in your phone then there were human ones, even if you counted your work number. 

You both pocket your phones at the same time, and Alphys walks with you towards the nearest bus stop. Her girlfriend Undyne had promised to pick her up before you ran into Alphys in the store, but until then she joined you in walking to stop where you would wait for public transit.

“I-I’m sure Undyne wouldn’t mi-mind giving you a lift home,” Alphys tries to offer but you shake your head, already imagining how weird it would be to sit in the back seat of a strangers car; you’d already had your fill of social interaction for the day anyways. 

“No, I wouldn’t want to impose, and I live nearby,” you say truthfully: you didn’t want to take up more of the time she had been spending on a donut run then you already had and home was close by.

As Alphys’ starts to say that it was all alright, a loud chorus of laughter takes your attention away for a second, and you do a double take, looking down the side walk where the two of you are heading. Lounging around the bus stop were several familiar faces, and the sight of them makes you halt in your tracks.

“Al-Alphys, maybe-,” you start to make an excuse, like maybe you had left something back at Muffet’s shop, but before you can get it out one of those faces manages to notice yours. He lifts from hand still shoved into his coat and nudges a friend, who turns smiling in your direction to see what’s up. You see him recognize you right away, and begin muttering to the others beside them.

“Si-Sirius,” Alphys stutters from beside you, seeing the worry in your expression, and then she sees the men approaching, making a soft _eep!_ from beneath the press of her hands.

“Heeeeey, _you_!”

“Monster lover gotta ‘nother monster!”

“Would you look at _that_.”

“Shit, Alphys-,” you start to warn your friend to run, but the group of guys reaches the two of you in only a few steps, their legs long and their steps excited.  You find yourself surrounded before you can dare to move away, and something tells you that there are a least one more of them then there had been the other day. Alphys is pressing her back against your side, but you have little assurance to give, fear causing your heart in your chest to plummet.

“Nice to see you again, honey bunches,” one of them says pretending to be sweet, and his friends chuckle from around you.

“You got yourself another oversized lizard,” another one asks. “Looks like they're building an _exhibit_.”

The harassers seem to find this hilarious, their amusement building with each traded word, and the space between you and Alphys’ and them is shrinking.

 “She as smooth as that lizard kid-,” one of them wonders out loud, and you glance over your shoulder just in time to see him reaching for Alphys’, her eyes wide in terror when his grip lands on her arm.

“ _Let her go_ ,” you yelp, snatching your hand out to grab at his wrist, his hold just loose enough for you to pull it off of her, but he smacks your hand away from his. His face twists into anger, but you hold your ground, standing half before Alphys and your eyes move wryly between the remainder of the men surrounding you.

Disgust curls in your stomach when the man who reached for Alphys begins to grin again, clearly delighted by your attempt at defending her. Your hands are shaking as you try to look over his shoulders, around any of them, hoping against hope that someone has noticed what is going on and is trying to help. But the few people that you see either don’t notice or are either staring or walking quickly away, clearly unwilling to get involved.

 _This isn’t happening_ , you think in a rush, but it is, and something tugs at the hood of your coat, making you stumble slightly backwards and a peal of laughter follows after. The bullying continues, another one of them daring to reach for Alphys, and you start to bite out a _fuck off_ until the man jumps back, clutching his hand closely to his chest, “ _Fuck_.”

The laughter abruptly dies, and you notice Alphys holding herself in a similar fashion. “A-Alphys, are you okay?!”

“I-I-,” she tries, but then the man that had tried to grab her is holding his hand away from his chest, rage smothering his features as you notice the red leaking from three deep lines that wrap around the heel of his hand. “I didn’t _mean_ to.”

“ _That freak cut me_!”

“What the _fuck_?”

Suddenly every one of them looks the same, just as pissed off as the next, and one to your right is grabbing at you again. You lift your arm automatically to try and bat him away, but then your wrist is in his hand, and you breathe out a shudder, watching the flash of mad glee in his eyes.

His grip tightens, making you hiss, and you think you hear Alphys gasp when the ground comes up to meet you. You knees smack against the concrete and pain lances up your arm from your elbow where it makes contact with the ground.

“Sirius!” You hear Alphys cry out, and her hands grip your shoulders, trying to right you, and you see glimpse the man that has let go of your hand about to swipe Alphys’ attempts away. You hear yourself call out her name, your body acting on its own again when you dive for his legs. The man stumbles and falls, crumbling backwards and landing against the surface of the road _with_ an _umph_!

You gasp slightly, aware of the fact that you’re half laying on the guy’s legs, and scramble back, your funny bone complaining loudly about the treatment its being given.

One of the guy’s friends is at his side as he starts to set up, clutching at the back of his head, but any effort you have at being afraid about what that must imply is interrupted by something entirely unexpected, because someone is _roaring_ with anger. 

You head snaps to the side, the hairs on the back of your neck standing at instant attention, and you see the blue blur flying down the sidewalk in your direction. You’re aware after a beat that this flask of color is an actual person, and that they’ve barreled their way into the party, one of the men thudding to the ground from beside Alphys as his jaw is met with one hell of a right hook.

“Undyne!”

“Al _phyyy **yyyyyss**_!”

You jaw snaps shut and your spine goes rigid, and you can only watch as this one-woman army gets between the surrounding men and her girlfriend. A few of their guys get it into their heads to lunge for her, but more than one body joins their friend on the sidewalk, all in a span of a heartbeat, and one of them she has in one hand. She’s lifting him by his face, holding his struggling form with one muscled grip above the ground, and her face is all teeth, sharp, serrated teeth that you know with absolute certainty could shatter bone if she used them on the man she’s holding.

“ ** _Back. Off_** _.”_ Undyne barks, but the noise the man makes is incoherent at best. With a swing of her arm his body his falling, jostling against the pavement in a way that is clearly going to leave lasting damage for him to wake up to in the morning.

Undyne’s attention snaps to her girlfriend, who that entire time has been as frozen as a statue, too afraid to even shiver, and her scales pale in comparison to the bright yellow they once were. “Alphys?”

“Undyne!” The spell breaks, and Alphys rushes forward, moving to meet Undyne as the much taller woman scoops her into an embrace, burrowing her face into the lizard’s neck and Alphys does the same to her. “ _I-I-I-.”_

“I know, Alphie. I’ve got you.”

You flinch when the guy you had tackled gets up and begins to stumble away, your attention going to the few others that were still conscious following after. There are fewer there then you could recall, but you suppose that some must have turn tail while Undyne was taking care of the rest. As if the thought of the woman pricks her conscious, she turns her finned face in your direction.

“ _You_!” She says, and you jolt where your sitting, really not prepared for whatever she had to say. “Are you okay?”

Really not prepared.

You nod shakily, and you become aware of a distant wailing that is beginning to pick up from down the street. Sirens. Someone finally called the cops. You glance around, seeing the bodies piled on the sidewalk. This isn’t good. “We, we have to go,” you try, and Undyne watches you silently, before she jerks a nod.

“Alphie, sweetie, hold on,” she says to her yellow girlfriend, sniffs but shakes her head up and down. With one swift movement, Undyne picks up Alphys with both arms, hefting her up with a smooth ease you could only expect after the wallop she gave the down and out men around you.

You lift yourself to your feet, your are legs wobbling, but then Undyne reaches one hand out and takes hold of your arm. Her hold is secure as she leads you along for the few steps that you need until  your'e steady, and the two of you, plus Alphys, are jogging down the sidewalk away from the mess you leave behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very happy about reader response! readers respond for next time, too?  
> very excited for next chapter: more G, different pov, sirius finds out something new...what could it be??


	4. Of Shared Souls and Words Given

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, oh! saturday is today, today is saturday. that = update! next sat = update, too. so on, so forth.  
> nervous about thing; what think?

Alphys watched with her hands held tightly together as the coin flipped, once, twice, three times in the air before it fell, clattering to the tiled floor. Truth be told, United States quarters are more copper then nickel, but the one between Alphys and her partner gave a mocking sliver gleam as it looked up at the two of them: tails.

“looks like it’s my lucky day, doc,” he smirks, nothing more than a slight flash of white teeth before he straightens up and reaches for his jacket pocket.

“G-G,” Alphys begins to protest, but he shakes his skull gently, already tapping his human cigarettes against the carpals of his wrist.

“sorry, you’ve gotta get out sometime,” he says, and Alphys has to smother a sigh. What would Undyne think about this? More than likely Alphys’ girlfriend would try to light G on fire with one glare, her perfectly pointed teeth shining in a vicious snarl that always made Alphys shiver. But G probably wouldn’t budge an inch.

 _“she needs to get used to how things are; she can’t hide forever,”_ and all the while lighting up that pointless tobacco roll up of his. “lemme know if something happens,” the current G says, his back turned away from Alphys as she remains standing in their lab. She blushes at this, but nods, even if he could not see her. G was right, both of them that is. She had to acclimate to how the world was, and she always had her cellphone if something happened, and as much as G had changed, she did not doubt that he would come for her if he needed to.

“Right! I’m leaving,” she says, catching G as he waves lazily, his eye socket pressed against the microscope on the table before him.

Hours later Alphys has only just stopped trembling. Her face is pressed against Undyne’s collar bone, and she can hear her girlfriend as she talks to you about why they are standing in front of the queen’s home.

“It’s a lot closer than our place or Alphie’s lab,” she says, shifting Alphys in her grip. Alphys lets her slide her to the sidewalk, and she sees that they’re next to the queen’s porch steps. You are standing off to the side, one hand clutching your right arm as it is cradled against your chest. A flash of guilt chokes Alphys’ throat, and she looks down at her feet, poking out from under the lab coat she had never removed after leaving earlier.

Meanwhile, Undyne is taking out the key hidden in one of the bricks that frame the window to the right of the front door. “Queenie said we could stop by whenever something like this happens,” Undyne continues to explain, and Alphys sees the concern on your face when Undyne takes her hand and begins to walk inside.

“This doesn’t happen often, does it,” you ask, your jaw tightening, and Alphys thinks not for the first time that you remind her of Undyne.

Undyne turns her head after turning on the entry way light, her scowl bitter, “Often enough.” Alphys tightens her hold on her girlfriend’s hand, who does the same, the edges of her anger softening when Alphys smile up at her pathetically.

The queen and Frisk are not home so the house is mostly dark, lingering scents of ground cinnamon and rich butterscotch in the air. Undyne grabs a chair from the dining room and moves it out, pointing at it and saying a stern: “Sit.” You comply, still holding your arm. Undyne moves over to another chair and pulls it out as well, but rather then tell Alphys to move, she picks her up, placing her down gently so Alphys’ tailed is curled around.

Alphys says nothing as Undyne swiftly moves swiftly back to where they had come, returning shortly with a familiar blanket from the queen’s chair. She pulls it around Alphys shoulders, covering every inch of that she can manage until only Alphys’ head and feet are showing.

Into the kitchen Undyne goes next, the clatter of metal telling Alphys that she was starting tea, before the much taller woman enters the room again, a white box with a red cross on its front. It was large, needing plenty of space on the kitchen table between Alphys and yourself. Alphys knew that the queen had some skill in healing, but not enough to warrant not stocking up on medical supplies. Alphys herself had tried it more than once before, but it never worked out properly. You needed a certain kind of Soul for that kind of talent.

You were starting to stand up, your mouth opening as if to say something, but Undyne pushes you back down with one hand on the shoulder of your uninjured arm. “Stay still, punk. I’ll do all the work,” Undyne says, but not unkindly. Alphys can tell that Undyne is regretting not being there to begin with, and that it’s keeping her from being as spirited as she normally is, but that doesn’t stop Alphys from feeling the swell of love in her chest from her Soul when she sees her Soul Mate trying to help.

You begin removing part of your jacket without being told, gingerly pulling your hurt arm out of your coat sleeve. Alphys sees the mottled purple finger shaped bruises peeking out from beneath your shirt sleeve and gasps, earning a glance from you that's almost apologetic.

"It’s not that bad," you try, but Undyne huffs out a scowl when she comes around to sit next to you in her own chair.

"You big liar," she says, taking your wrist in one of her webbed hands and watching as you hiss between your teeth. "It doesn't look broken," Undyne says, prodding softly at the damage done before reaching over to the open first aid kit and pulling out what she needs from inside. Still, Alphys can't help but think that you look pretty cool by the end of it. Your coat is still draped over your shoulders and on one arm, and your short hair is ruffled from the scuffle you had with those much larger human men. Undyne has finished wrapping your arm in a bandage, advising it that you give it a break for a few days, which you rake with a quiet nod. This entire time you've been so calm, the exact opposite that Alphys was otherwise feeling. If it weren't for Undyne's ministrations, Alphys would be a sobbing wreck.

Alphys swallows thickly around her own cowardice, which catches your eye. You can't be capable of reading her mind, but your words are careful: "Are you feeling better?"

Alphys nods, unable to hide her frown, "Y-yeah, I'm sorry that I couldn't do anything-."

"Doctor Alphys, it's okay," you say, leaning forward in your chair, even as the effort makes you wince. "I was really scared back there, too."

"You, you were?" Alphys doesn't quite believe it, but she appreciates what you are saying nonetheless. "I was right about what I said, you really are a he-hero."

Something in your face shifts, and Alphys starts to think that she said something wrong, but then you notice that Undyne is staring you down again.

"Hey, what's wrong with your arm?"

"What? It's-."

"No use hiding it, punk. Give it here," Undyne takes your arm again and pulls it towards her, pulling up the shirt sleeve further even as you protest.

Both Alphys and Undyne still as they see the words written onto you arm, both of their heads titling automatically in sync to make them out: "* _he's been going mutts all day_ ".

"Holy shit, is that your Soul Mark?"

It is, it has to be! This is the first time Alphys has seen a human's Soul Mark up close, outside of manga and the internet. Instantly the scientist in her wants to examine it further (was that an astrix at the beginning?) while the romantic in her just wanted to squeal.

But a flush of red is covering your cheeks, and once again Alphys is distracted, if only a little. After all, it had always been curious to her how humans blushed red, which she thought could be due to their Soul's natural predisposition for Determination, but it wasn't as nearly captivating as a _physical_ Soul Mark.

"Y-yeah, it is," you reply uncertainly to Undyne's earlier question, your other hand covering up a few of the words.

"Have you already met them?" Undyne claps her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. "Wait, I'm not supposed to ask that, am I?"

Alphys sees the confusion on your face, taking away from the guarded disposition you had worn a minute prior. "I, I don't think so? Don't you know that?"

"Shit, right," Undyne rolls her eyes, and Alphys has to resist the urge to giggle when she scolds herself. "Humans don't know that do they? Monsters don't have Soul Marks."

" _What_?" You say, more animated then Alphys has seen you since the two of you had left the café.

"Yeah, don't need 'um," Undyne goes on, shrugging like its nothing, and she loops an arm around Alphys' shoulders.

You don’t say anything for several seconds, and Alphys watches with her girlfriend as you mouth opens and closes several times before actual words come out.

"You don’t have Words?” They shake their heads in unison.

“Bu-but, how do you know," you ask, and Alphys sees you looking between her and Undyne, discomfort mingled in with the bafflement of your expression. It was really rather intriguing to watch, and Alphys latched onto the chance to explain right away!

"M-monster Souls tell us when we meet our Soul Mates." Alphys starts, and Undyne smiles, nudging at her to keep going. "It doesn't happen right away, and it kind of, kind of feels like falling in love normally does, I think?" She's blushing, but she forces herself to get the words out, as embarrassing as the subject is. "The closer you get, the more you can hear it telling you. Like an actual physical feeling in your chest that just builds, and builds! Until, until one day you just-." This time it's Alphys turn to shrug, not knowing how to go further without making a mess of it.

"Until it yells at you, "Hey idiot, that's them!" Like me and Alphie, here!" Undyne finishes, and loops a thick arm around Alphys' shoulders, smothering a kiss into her fringe and making her laugh at the way Undyne’s breath tickled her scales.

When Undyne pulls away and Alphys is still smiling, she sees you looking between the two of them blankly.

"Oh."

Undyne laughs, sitting back in her chair, but not before scooting Alphys' closer. "Sorry about asking, by the way."

"No, it's okay," you say, your eyes landing on your arm as Alphys sees your thumb rubbing across a part of a word it covers. "I have met them." You seem almost dissociated from the conversation when you mention this, but both Alphys and Undyne jolt at the confession.

"What?!" They yell in excitement. Finding your Soul Mate has always been a big deal, especially with monsters with how small the population has always been. Maybe it’s just not the same for human’s as they expected it to be?

"Who are they--wait, you don't need to say," Undyne amends, backing off, but Alphys can’t help the bubbling volcano of interest beneath her scales, that urge to ask _who_ , _when_ , _where_?

"Aren't, aren't humans born with their Marks? Isn't it the first words your Mate will ever say to you?"

"Yeah," you say quietly, but Alphys doesn't examine the frown you’re wearing, thinking that you could be just distracted by thoughts of the Mate that isn't in the room with you. That would make more sense. "Mostly. I didn't get mine until a few months ago."

The implication of your words doesn't hit Alphys right away, but when it does, she hears herself gasp loudly.

Undyne is shooting her an excited look, and Alphys understands why. Undyne didn't always pick up on the logistics of Alphys’ research, but that didn't stop her from wanting to know what she was working on. Alphys had talked about human Soul Mates recently, and she knew exactly what was on her girlfriend’s mind.

"Your Soul Mate is a monster?"

You didn't say anything right away, but no sooner then you tried to, Alphys and Undyne practically falling out of their seats for an answer, did a ringing stop you.

The three of them startled, and Undyne reaches into her the pocket of the coat she had slung onto the back of her chair.

"It's that damn assistant of yours," she grumbles, both you and Alphys watching as she stands up in her chair, the wood scraping against the floor unpleasantly.

"Oh, the donuts," Alphys suddenly recalls the smashed box of pastries she had left when they ran.

"He can suck it up and get his ass over here," Undyne complains, pecking Alphys on the head before leaving the room to head for the kitchen, where the kettle had begun to let out a shield scream.

Alphys sighs, upset due to her latest mistake, and you must have heard her. "Will he be mad at you? I can pay for a new box."

"N-no, he doesn't eat much anyways." Especially after the incident. He would be more upset about hearing what had happened, and G could be scary sometimes. Alphys lifts her head, careful about what she asks next: "C-could I?"

You hesitate, but then move closer, allowing Alphys to take and look over your arm. "It's so interesting that you need these."

"Do you know why...?" You ask, watching Alphys as she tilts your arm in the light, as if to discover something hidden that she had not noticed before.

"We-well, they say that after monsters were trapped in the mountain, humans were cut off from some of their monster Soul Mates, and, and over time human magic began to wane as they moved on, becoming more dependent on technology and science. Because of that, they couldn't hear their Souls as well or bring them out to see theirs or others."

“You can take out your Soul?" You wonder aloud, the awe returning to your face, which Alphys has to smile about.

"Y-yeah! Normally you keep them in your body, but during a confrontation human Souls will leave their body. When a monster dies, you-you can see it for a short time. Otherwise, monsters only bring them out when they're alone with their Soul Mate."

"Why then?"

"O-oh, to show them everything. When, when your Soul Mate holds your Soul, they see all that you are, and, and all of you've done," Alphys is a blushing mess at this point, hiding her smile in her hand as her heart raves beneath her skin. She would never forget the first day that she had shared hers with Undyne.

"An-anyways," she tries again, reaching for your arm to check over the words: were Soul Marks always this odd? It didn't sound very romantic. "When the barrier fell, some monsters felt their Soul Mates Souls calling out from them immediately."

"What, what was that like?"

Alphys shrugs, something prodding at her mind as she rereads the words, and causing her to barely notice when Undyne walks past the two of you, heading for the front door.

"You would have to ask them, I’m afraid…I, I think I _know_ this handwriting..."

The front door opens in the other room, cold air pushing into the warmth. "Bout damn time, you punk!"

"This is-," Alphys starts to say, a swell of wonder bursting in her chest.

"she alright?"

Alphys yelps and nearly topples over when you suddenly snatch your arm away, shoving it into your coat sleeve as she stares at you, eyes wide, and magic pounding.

Is this really happening? _This is really happening_!

From behind her Alphys feels G enter the room with Undyne behind him, "G!" she turns in her seat slightly, and she can see clearly as your face shifts from skittishness to confusion.

"G?"

The skeleton has stopped in his tracks, and for the first time in months, Alphys sees his cool demeanor jolt into surprise, then crumple into discomfort.

"h-hey, siri."

 

Alphys can feel herself practically vibrating in her seat at the turn of events, and Undyne is casting her a speculative glance, which she shakes her head minutely at, mouthing “ _later_.”

Meanwhile something about your face looks pained, and G has slipped back into looking blasé about pretty much everything. That doesn’t stop the two of you from looking at nearly anything but each other, and Alphys has to bite her bottom lip when both of you and G clutch at your individual chests, both falling away and neither you nor him noticing as the front door opens and the queen comes inside.

“Sirius?” She questions, then sees you in your chair waving meekly in a way that reminds Alphys of who G was _before_ he became G, but you’re quickly smothered by a blur of white fur and a hundred or so pounds of maternal affection. “ _My child, what happened_?”

Alphys looks up at Undye beside her chair for answers, and her girlfriend quietly replies: “I texted her in the kitchen.”

A grunt of pain is heard and Alphys with Undyne and G, Alphys notes, widen their eyes as Toriel backs off from you, the queen holding her hands close to her chest as if she had touched something hot…or was afraid to do any more damage.

“It’s-it’s nothing,” you grit, cupping your arm but trying to smile reassuringly all the same. This doesn’t stop Toriel from lifting the right cuff of your jacket slowly, her fingers barely brushing the bandages there, and you’re still holding onto your elbow.

“Shit, we forgot about the other one,” Undyne says, but you’re already waving her off, trying to stand up from your chair, letting your arm go limp and hang by your side, a decision that causes you to flinch again and your other free hand to fly up cover your elbow once more. Whatever damage had been done, Alphys could tell that it had been allowed to sit for too long, now any movement and thus a less obstruct flow of blood was causing the pain to return in full force.

Alphys wants to say something, and doesn’t know when G moved, but he’s there beside your chair, his black eye sockets whipping over every inch of you.

“ ** _who did this_**?”

For the first time in as many minutes you meet his eyes, the light that normally swam there long gone for as far as Alphys could see: G is _mad_ , and it didn’t just take that or his clinched hands to show anyone this.

But by some miracle, you aren’t shying away. It has to be a terrifying thing, Alphys thinks, meeting G head on when he’s like… _this_. It was rare that she ever saw it. In spurts maybe, when their research for Papyrus met one dead end after another, and sometimes when he had few too many nights without sleep, but otherwise G was just G. He was like some indifferent story protagonist, everything slipping off him like oil on water.

 _Is it because they’re Soul Mates,_  Alphys has to question it privately to herself, and it just makes her little heart stutter even more. It was like she was watching one of her favorite television shows play out in front of her very eyes. Except you and G were real, and you actually looked _concerned_.

“I don’t know,” you say, stepping from foot to foot, every movement being watched by the skeleton that stands before you, and Alphys can swear form her seat that she’s seeing color in your cheeks. “They were the ones that attacked MK-.”

“MK?” Undyne speaks up, drawing nearly everyone’s attention to her. “You’re the one who saved him the other day in the city?” Undyne was caught off guard, and Alphys frowned, realizing that you and her girlfriend had probably never made proper introductions. “Do you think they’re following you?”

You blink, as if this just occurs to you, but you shake your head anyways. “N-no, it was coincidence, that’s all.”

But G isn’t done. “ **what did they** -,” and just as he raises a hand to take your arm Alphys sees you flinch back, angling it away from G, who has frozen still with his hand still in the air.

You say nothing, looking between his hand and yours, and Alphys thinks that you look guilty. “I’m sorry,” although she doesn’t know what you’re apologizing for.  “I should head home.”

G’s hand finally drops as Toriel sighs in discontent, the queen obviously not happy with your decision. “Whatever may have happened, I can see you still need more time to rest, dear. Please consider staying the night,” she almost pleads, and you glance up before looking away, a flash of pain in your eyes that is hard to miss.

“N-no, Ms. Toriel, I’ve stayed late enough.” With this you leave the kitchen, Toriel stepping out of the way and your figure disappearing past Undyne and into the foyer. Alphys grasps loosely at the air, wishing that she can come up with something to say, every part of her conscious thinking that this must somehow be her fault.

“ _G,”_ she hears Undyne hiss in question, but G ignores her as he moves through the kitchen after you, and not long after the sound of the door opening and closing comes it happens again, leaving the three remaining in tense silence.

You don’t know if it’s him you expected to follow you out, but it’s G who you see when you look over your shoulder while in the middle of zipping up your coat.

The porch light of Toriel’s home makes the white of his peritoneum glow wherever it touches, the areas where it doesn’t darkening almost eerily. The furred hood of his coat sits around the thick vertebrae of his neck, tapering off into points on his black leather jacket, which cuts off just below where his rib cage must end. Unlike the other night, he’s wearing a thick sweater that’s tucked into his jeans, and he lifts his hands to adjust the tab of your coat so it’s no longer stuck on its way up, his phalanges long, and bare palms punctured by one wide hole apiece. His single eye glows as it catches your gaze, and you become aware of the fact that you’ve stopped breathing again since he stepped outside.

Gods, he is gorgeous.

“having a little trouble,” he asks in his deep burr of a voice, sending shivers up and down your already taunt muscles, every sinew pulled thin with the amount of sheer emotion coursing through your veins. Why does he have to be so close?

“Thank you,” you say in a small voice, ripping your eyes away from him to fiddle pointlessly at your zipper, pulling it slightly lower, then up again where it had been before, as if it actually made some sort of difference.

“this isn’t how i wanted to run into you again,” he says, and you have to look up, catching the tired timber in the inflections of his words. Maybe you weren’t the only one who had a long night, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling self-conscious about it.

“You wanted to see me,” you ask uncertainly, your voice frail, but a thin line of hope still manages to make its way up your throat, you can physically feel it. Although the smile he gives doesn’t chase the wryness from his face away, it softens it, and your toes curl in their shoes.

“i thought we had a good talk the other night. been wantin’ to pick up where we left off,” he says by way of explanation, and your soul hums in nervous appreciation. “heading to the stop?”

Your eye brows raise slightly, a blush managing to cover more ground on your cheeks then had already been touched at the beginning of your conversation. “I uh, don’t think I’ll be taking the bus,” you admit reluctantly, your eyes meeting with the ground, but you can’t come with any reasonable excuse. All of the real ones sound ridiculous in your mind: you don’t want to be in an enclosed space right now, the unpleasant artificial lighting would wake you up more than you would like, and despite you turning down Toriel’s offer, you really aren’t looking forward to being home alone right away.

But G doesn’t ask for your reasoning, and you get the feeling that he somehow just understands, or maybe that’s your Soul getting it’s hopes up. “can i walk you home?”

“It’s, it’s pretty far,” you reply lamely, your brain too sluggish right now to come up with anything better.

“i’ve got time.”

You try not to let yourself think that he looks relaxed after you nod, the sentient skeleton falling by your side as the pair of you walk in an even rhythm away from the house and down the sidewalk.

It’s quiet at first, nothing but the distant hum of the city and the mummers of the night coming from the street lamps and the crunching of snow beneath your two sets of feet meeting your ears. G pulls out a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket, tapping them on his naked wrist until one stick slides out, but when he raises it to his teeth he doesn’t move to light it, laying it dangle there in a way that reminds you of the first night that you met.

“Why don’t you light those,” you ask, and he gives a soft shrug, removing the stick from his teeth and twisting it between the bones of his left hand smoothly.

“don’t like others to get caught up in my bad habits,” he says, and you have to wonder what else he means by that. Everything about G reminds you of some aloof, attractive love interest from some movie or novel, and you’re the reader with a thousand words brimming beneath your skin, all of which amounted to one basic and yet complicated question: who is he?

_And why did he give me a false name?_

It bothered you that you heard what you did: G, or was it Gee? Or Jhee? How do you even go about asking that question even without making obvious your discomfort about the other one?

It could have been a nickname, _Sans_ , or maybe it was the other way around. But that just made you more impatient to get to know this person that your Soul physically hummed for. 

 _It feels like falling in love,_ Alphys had. But you had his Words on your arm, you didn’t need that vertigo feeling like the world is suddenly titling on it’s axis, every point of your body wanting to lean towards him. It was ridiculous, you hardly know him, if anything the name thing proved that you didn’t know him at all. You had just met once, and now you were walking home together on the same road where you had stood next to him for the first time only a few nights ago.

“does it hurt?” G asks, and it’s hard for you not to think that he means what you’re feeling right now, but his right hand motions at your wrist, the bandages peeking out from under your coat sleeve.

“It’s kind of numb,” you admit, not wanting to lie to him. Something about keeping it close and mostly motionless at your side has dulled the pain to an ache, the bruised bone  needing rest more than anything.

“undyne said you had another one,” G brings up, his eye moving up your arm, as if he’s reading the words from left to right through the material that covers them.

_He doesn’t even know they exist._

“Just a bruise,” you reply, feeling the muscle twinge underneath your skin. At least, that’s what you hope it is. You really need to look at it later when you’re alone.

“what happened,” he asks. But G isn’t looking at you this time like in the dining room. His eye hasn’t gone dark, but the light has dimmed, the yellow disk resembling the harvest moon caught behind a swath of cloud. Is being around him making you a poet, or what?

The sight of the pits of his skull going dark and even darker earlier had scared you into thinking that he was angry: angry at humans and how pitiless they could be towards those that they think are weaker than they are. You were afraid that he thought the same thing of you, and nothing about that fear had sat right with you, reinforcing your need to keep your secret about your arm as tucked away from him as possible.

_What must he think of humans, really?_

You hadn’t meant to flinch away from him in the dining room, but he was so close to just finding out. Still, you felt bad about it, and maybe if you tried, you could show him that not all humans were so bad…just the jerks that you had run into.

So you tell him.

“Doctor Alphys and I were leaving Ms. Muffets when we ran into them. They were by the busstop that I was going to take home,” you say, looking out into the night as you recall what happened. The fear that you felt is distant compared to how you are now, too tired to feel anything short of somewhat out of it, even as you seek to find some way of reassuring G. “They saw us and,” you hesitate, not wanting to go into what exactly it was that they said, and G must notice, because he turns his head fully towards you.

“Well, they surrounded the two of us, and, and there was this one guy that tried grabbing at Alphys? But, but then the others tried doing the same thing to both of us? And, at one point Alphys accidentally,” you stop again, shaking your head. You don’t want to rat Alphys out, she had just been protecting herself, she didn’t mean to hurt the guy exactly. “One of them managed to grab my wrist, and I sort of fell?” It sounds lame hearing it out loud, and you hope that G can’t see your terrible attempt at covering up what had happened. But G is frowning again, and you can’t keep your eyes on him, thinking you had failed. “Anyways, then Undyne showed up, and she just, flew in between them,” you can’t keep the wonder that you felt then, and still do now hidden as you see her in your head, a blur of blue fury. “She managed to take them out, and just scooped Alphys up with one arm, and we left,” you finish, more awake then you had been then when you had started.

G doesn’t say anything right away, letting out a billow of air from between his white teeth. You don’t know how he feels right then, but you feel anxious, and just below that, a thread of…anger? Why is that? You’re still mad at those guys for trying to hurt Alphys, and for attacking MK. What gave them the right to pick on some kid, on anyone?

Now it’s your turn to sigh, and where you had begun to feel light-hearted, you just felt…drained.

“i heard that you took out ten guys when you found mk in the city.” This catches you off guard, and you whip your head up, a protest an awkward bumbling on your lips.

“What? No, _how_? Who keeps saying these things?”

The sound he makes fills you to the brim with warmth and awareness, making every hair on your body stand up while your heart grinds to a standstill. He's laughing, a deep chuckle accented by the rasp of his voice, and that just sounds so, _so right_.

You immediately want to hear it again, but you don’t think you can take it if you do.

“you’re really something, you know that,” his words stop you in your tracks, and he takes a step more before turning to look at you. “saving mk like that, and then sticking next to alph when those guys showed up again? you’re amazing, siri.”

Whatever was left of your casual demeanor burns up with your face, scattering any intelligent thought you have to the four corners of the world in a puff of ash. BP had said something like that in the kitchen you shared with BP, so had Alphys in the cafe, but coming from G, it was different by at least a nautical mile, and just like that in less than a space of a few seconds you had something else you wanted to hear from him again: admiration.

“I-I’m, I’m just me,” you try to retort, your eyes darting away and trying to look anywhere but at the source of the seriously concerning palpations that come when your heart starts up again.

“exactly,” as if that said everything, and man if the smile he’s wearing doesn’t stop you from breathing all over again.

You manage to somehow start walking again when he does, a feat all on it’s own. The little things, you tell yourself, putting one foot in front of the other.

Silence has fallen again by the time you notice that you’ve more or less moved into the city, from Ebotton to in-between, to near the heart of it all. Few people are out, given the time or the weather, but that doesn’t stop you from looking wryly around. G more or less passed for human, but if someone tried to do something to him, well, you didn’t know what you could do.

“it’s okay,” G says, drawing your attention, and maybe he’s drawn closer to you a little bit, the edge of his coat brushing yours. “i’m here.”

It hits you what he means soon after he says this, the protective edge to his voice you have to be imagining making you feel warm, while you stutter to amend his assumption. “No, I’m, I’m more worried about you.”

He turns his head, his customary curious lilt returning until he smiles, bumping his shoulder gently against yours. Does he not know what he does to you, or what? “i’ve got you to save me.”

He has to know.

“’sides,” he starts, and you see the darkness in his smirk, doing something to your stomach that it really, probably shouldn’t. “i’ve been around once or twice.”

You say nothing about this, letting your unspoken question hang in the air. You don’t think you’ll like whatever he has to say.

Soon you realize the two of you are standing in front of your apartment complex, but you’re less stressed out then anxious about seeing it again. There was no telling when you would see G next, after all. He knew Toriel, you know this now, but when would you even see her next, let alone the others? Covering up your unhappiness with a smile, you nod and lean in the direction of the building, trying to appear casual.

“Here I am.”

“here we are,” he repeats, stopping beside you, but making no move to immediately leave.

The offer is out of your mouth before you can stop it, “If you need to sit down, you, you can come up,” you say, wincing internally afterwards. You didn’t want him to leave, but you didn’t want him to see your place either in case it was messier then you can recall, and isn’t that what some people asked if they wanted to, well, _do something else_?

“nah,” he says, and you try not to let your equal parts of relief and regret show. “got somethin’ to take care of.”

“Okay,” you hum, hoping that you don’t sound as dejected as you feel. Seriously, if it was always going to be like this with him, maybe you should give him some space.

“but maybe…”

“Yeah?”

“you can hit me with a text later, on your cell phone,” he says, a hundred percent as laid back about the situation as you can only ever dream of being.

“I-I don’t have your number,” you reply dumbly, still processing that this is happening at all.

He chuckles gently, nothing mocking about it, and removes an object from his coat pocket that you vaguely recognize.

After you tell him your number he sends a text, you flipping open your phone as he still holds his in his hand between you. “ _knock, knock_.”

You’re reminded of when Toriel first sent you a text of those exact two words, but the sight of it makes you breathe out a quiet laugh in surprise. Why not?

 

(8:00) XXX-XXXX

_“Who’s there?”_

(8:01) ?

_“siri”_

You teethe your lip gently, not looking up from your phone even as you fight back the urge to grin.

 

(8:01) XXX-XXXX

_“Siri, who?”_

(8:02) ?

_“siriously can’t wait til we hang out again”_

This time when you laugh it’s audible, and you’re unable to contain the smile that you feel, lighting up your face in what most be the dopiest way possible. “I can’t wait either!”

G replies with a chuckle of his own, “cool.”

“Cool.”

You’re half way up the complex steps but he’s barely moved, watching with that lamplight eye of his, brightly shining from within the shadows of his skull. “cool.”

 

That light remains with you when you finally enter your apartment and say hello to your brother where he sits on the coffee table. It stays when you change out of your clothing and crawl into bed, hooking your phone up to its charger and placing it beside your pillow. And only when its dark, and your eyes remain open after one hour and then another, and a siren passes from below your window, do you remember what you wanted to ask him since you saw him again in that dining room.

_“Why Sans?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fluff will increase from now on! a lot! maybe....too much? naaah
> 
>  
> 
> Quick question, how do you guys feel about smut? Ill always make it skippable, but let me know if you would like the details about Siri to remain vague.


	5. Of Miscommunication, For Better or Worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> too excited to wait after positive feedback  
> next chapter one of favorites, another early update is on way!

Trading numbers with G had probably been simultaneously one of the best and worst ideas that you’ve ever had. Sure, it wasn’t your idea per se, and that alone was baffling to you, but just seeing your phone blink green at the possibility that it might be him is enough to send your heart into a distressing round of palpitations.

But oddly enough, once you had started actually texting him, you found it to be a hundred times easier then actually talking to him person

The first time G had texted you it had been the morning after he had walked you home from Toriel’s. When you rolled over in bed and checked your inbox, the sight on the preview screen of his text froze you in place for several minutes. Was this really happening?

(7:23) G

_good morning. sleep ok? let me know if you need a sidekick to help save the day_

You had a good morning text from your actual Soul Mate. In digital print. And he was worried about how you had slept. You wanted so dearly to roll around in bed and smother yourself in your own happiness, but the whole reason for his concern was an aching reminder of why that would be a bad idea. Your wrist was still wrapped up from last night, but by that morning the pain had dulled to throb that came and went with each heartbeat.

Rather than risk further injuring yourself by acting like a love struck teenager, you opened up a text to reply back, trying to sound as smooth and composed as you could manage under the circumstances. 

(7:45) xxx-xxxx

_Good morning! I slept okay, I’ve nearly forgotten about my injury. I think I’m more of a sidekick, though._

After a few minutes of deliberation you hit send, tossing your phone to your bed side table so you didn’t have to look at your potentially terrible decision while you readied yourself to work.

You managed to ignore your phone until you’re dressed and meeting a bleary eyed BP in the kitchen to grab a granola bar, your monster roommate still wearing his hoodie and jeans combo from his late night rehearsal.

(7:47) G

_with the way frisk and mk talk, i think i’m a little 2 cape_

(8:00) xxx-xxxx

_That was terrible!_

BP shot you a wide eyed stare and maybe backed away as you snorted like a loser, but you did nothing to explain yourself, simply tossing a goodbye over your shoulder as you left.

The remainder of that day had been much the same, with you checking your phone while hanging out in the back of the café whenever you could possibly manage without incurring the wrath of your boss. G, you discovered, was amazingly quick in his responses, the times for his replies coming usually only a minute after your own, but sadly your forced discretion leave you no room to do the same.

What else you found while texting G is that he’s definitely into puns, but the Words inscribed onto your arm had warned you about that from the get-go. He also never capitalizes anything, and switches between the correct forms as well as the text version of words erratically. By the time night rolled around, the image of G in your mind as opposed to the one you talked to on the phone just doesn’t mesh up. How could someone that looks like he does be so, so, _dorky?_

The next day G sent another text, but he’s not the only one, and you had to reread the message from the unknown number to make sure that it’s just as real.

(5:00) ???-????

_Hey Alph gave me your number. you feel like getting your chow on later? Shes free at around noon_

The only logical conclusion that you could come up with for the number belonging to had to be Undyne. What you didn’t expect was for Alphys to give her girlfriend your number. After the other night, you weren’t sure when or if you would see the fish-like Amazonian again, but then there she was, asking you out for lunch. It didn’t take you long at all to decide that this was a good sign. It wasn’t that you didn’t like Undyne, if anything in the short time span wherein you had been around her you thought the woman nothing short of amazing. With her long, shiny red hair, her coiling blue muscles, and shark like grin, she was a force to be reckoned with, something that you honestly envied, as well as admired.

Why did you keep running into attractive people? Were monsters being incredibly appealing people just a general rule or something? Why would anyone chase that under a giant rock to be forgotten for all of time?

So after psyching yourself up, you took the plunge.

(10:00) xxx-xxxx

 _Yeah, I’ve been wanting_ (draft)

 _Sure! I’d like to see you both again so I can_ (draft)

_Sure, I’m totally free. I was hoping that we could talk again._

That had to sound right. Casual, and yet eager, but not too eager.

(10:20) Undyne

_Bout time punk, I was thinkin youd flake out on us._

You're cold standing beside Muffet's today, your hands pressed as deeply as they can go into your old coats pockets while you berate yourself for not wearing gloves. They seemed like a good idea, and you did have a pair, but they were something you had gotten on clearance half a year ago. They were nice enough by themselves, but they never seemed to fit what you were wearing, and you were always worried that you would look weird wearing them. Buying them hadn't been a terrible idea, but you admitted that they weren't being worn for the most ridiculous reason.  Standing beside the door staying out of the way of passers-by and entering or exiting customers you continue to fidget pointlessly. What if someone thought you were loitering (that was against the law, wasn't it?)? What if Undyne and Alphys thought you waiting outside in the snow was weird (what if they somehow missed you?)? What if they questioned tour gloveless hands and thought you were stupid to be outside in this kind of weather-

"Jones!" You jump at the sound of your name, peering around the moving forms of human people and noticing an unmistakable someone waving as they walked in your direction.

You wave back, perhaps pointlessly since she can obviously see you, and as she gets closer, Alphys comes into sight by her side as well.

The two are stark contrast to one another. Tall versus short, deep blue versus rich yellow, sharky excitement versus a trembling smile of welcome. More than a few pairs of eyes are turned in their direction, some openly curious while others shrank back in plain revulsion. You feel a squirrel of distaste for the latter group and choose not to show that you've noticed, but neither do the girlfriends.

Undyne slaps a hand on your left shoulder, a sting of pain radiating across your skin while Alphys looks on. "How you've been, punk? Those battle scars healing up nicely?"

"Y-yeah," you reply, trying to hide your wince, but you can't be irritated about her rough greeting, her enthusiasm is just too infectious for someone you just met. "I can hardly feel it," you admit, addressing only your wrist but meaning the same for both it and your funny bone.

After you had arrived home the other night removing your jacket had been painful, but fortunately BP hadn't been around to ask any questions in person. That didn't stop him from sending a few concerned texts: apparently Undyne had told BP to watch out for his flat mate. You were confused on when you had let it drop that Undyne knew you were even sharing an apartment until you remembered that you had mentioned it to Toriel.

It turned out that your arm was fine, probably, but you are currently still sporting a massive yellow bruise under the layers of your clothing.

"A-are you okay, Doctor Alphys?" The little yellow dinosaur blushes noticeably, but otherwise nods.

"Y-yes, I had no physical injuries of note from the incident," she replies, and you smiled gratefully to yourself. "B-but thank y-you for asking, Sirius."

"And it's thanks to you Ms. Hero that my little Alphie is okay," Undyne beamed, sending Alphys further into embarrassment. "Which is why lunch is on me!"

Before you can dispute either topics Alphys stutters out a question about where you should go, and several minutes of deliberation follow. Sadly you can't recommend any ramen shops in the area, but you suggest the next best thing perhaps: sushi. Undyne has never had it before, but the thought of eating raw fish and spicy wasabi is all the incentive she needs.

A small bell jingles above your heads when your group enters the shop, Undyne’s hand in the lead as it reaches in over Alphys and pushes it open. You’re just behind the two of them, falling beside the scientist when she stops to fret in the door way, but Undyne is quick to move to the front counter with confidence.

“It smells _gooood_.”

Standing behind the rounded, lacquer counter top is a teenager wearing a crisp button up shirt under a black apron, and the polite smile they wear quivers the slightest bit with Undyne standing before them. “We-welcome,” the say, taking up a couple of folded menus from beside their cash register. “Booth for two?”

“Aaaand my girlfriend here,” Undyne states, picking up Alphys effortlessly by her shoulders, who doesn’t break her hand wringing as she lets out a startle _oh_!

“O-of course! Table or booth?”

The frazzled waiter leads the three of you to a red leather booth with a dark enamel frame on the right side of the store, Undyne and Alphys glancing around appreciatively as you go. They take the seat across from you, leaving your back to the front of the store, and the waiter asks for your choices of beverage with a more stable sounding voice.

Maybe getting used to Undyne just takes time, you were one example of this, but as the waiter leaves with the orders for white and black bubble tea, Alphys and Undyne respectively, and your  cola, you can’t help but notice again that other people are staring.

There are several tables and booths like your own about the restaurant, which looks pretty nice in itself. The floor is a polished wood that matches the seating, there’s a short sushi bar as well with several well-dressed cooks behind it, and the walls have a thin cloth covering, pulled tight with tiny threads of gold glimmer between the black. Several people are already there for lunch, belaying its popularity, and most if not all have taken notice of the new monster customers.

But Undyne and Alphys don’t notice the attention, too wrapped up in peering at a menu together, rather than separately staring at their own.

“Shit, Alphie, they have actual _eel_.”

“I-I might try the salmon.”

Undyne smirked, nudging her girlfriend in the ribs, “Craving a little fish today?”

“Undyne! Tha-that’s most of the menu!”

With their blatant flirting it’s easy for you to focus on the table in front of you and not the others around the restaurant. If they’re relaxed, maybe you should try not to worry, and give it ago yourself?

Picking up your own menu, you decide to try and do just that.

_“What do you think they’re doing?”_

_“I don’t know, coming to place like this?”_

The comments are poorly hidden, coming only a few tables away, close to a wide clear glassed fish tank. It’s only two people, but they aren’t even bothering to be discreet as they stare in your direction, one of them frowning deeply when they catch you looking.

“Too bad you don’t eat meat, Jones. Everything on the menu looks awesome!” Undyne says, and you turn away from the couple. Maybe you should say something? You could choose a new restaurant, maybe even order a pizza at yours and BP’s apartment, but the way Undyne smiles tips you off that she mores then aware of what’s going on.

“U-Undyne-.”

“Don’t worry about other people, Jones. If they gotta problem, they’ll have to take it up with me,” she says reassuringly, an edge to her words that even while she’s coming off as friendly is enough to make you sure that she had faced worse things in her time then a couple of jerks.

The waiter returns with your drinks in time to take your orders on what to eat, leaving the menus on the table since the meal sizes were technically pretty small. Shortly after they leave, your phone pings in your lap, and you flip open the screen to see a text.

(12:20) The G Man

_knock knock_

Already you can feel yourself beginning to grin, but you hold it back with your teeth, hurrying to type away your reply.

(12:21) xxx-xxxx

_Who’s there?_

(12:21) The G Man

_ya_

(12:22) xxx-xxxx

_Ya who?_

_Wait_ (draft)

(12:20) The G Man

_gee, i’m happy to talk to you too_

(12:24) xxx-xxxx

_Talking to yourself is a sign of insanity_

(12:26) The G Man

_what can i say. i’m a little cracked in the skull_

You have to cover your laugh with one hand, both amused and startled that he would make a joke about his appearance of all things. You’re still red faced by this and the fact that you had the guts to suggest that he’s insane at all when you see Undyne squinting at you suspiciously with her one visible eye.

But Alphys is the one to speak first, clearly curious about the noise you were making. “Y-you seem happy, Sirius.”

You don’t even think to stop to consider your reply. Why bother lying after all? “I’m talking to G.”

Absolutely glee crosses over their faces, their excitement making you think that perhaps it was a bad idea after all to admit as they begin to talk at once.

“Did you tell him?” “A-are you dating-?”

“Wha-what?” You’re positively shocked by the very idea. “No! Why would we be?”

“Because you’re Soul Mates, duh,” Undyne says with a soft scowl, as if that’s all there was to it.

“Bu-but G doesn’t, I mean-.”

“You haven’t told him?” Her smile has dropped, and now it’s her to be the surprised one it seems, but you’ve still got her beat.

You? Tell G that _you’re_ his Soul Mate? That would be crazy! Not only had you only known each other for only a few days, but this was _G_ you were talking about.  Even in that short amount of time, you could tell how funny he was, not to mention he was the very _definition_ of cool, and the way he had looked outside Toriel’s doorway the other night, standing near the light with his coat pulled around him…you didn’t stand a chance. Words or no Words, he was incredible, and meanwhile you were just a great big ball of stuttering anxiety.

You could just imagine how that confession would go.

_“Oh, hey G, or Sans, or, I mean, G. You know how we’ve just met and how I’ve managed to run into trouble twice and I totally blew you off at Toriel’s but do you wanna maybe commit to the most intense personal relationship you can have on this planet? Like, now, maybe?”_

A sigh escapes you before you can stop it, and they both hear, Alphys apolitically grim: “I-I’m sorry we brought it up, Sirius.”

“It, it’s okay, Alphys,” you say, trying to smile again but forgetting her title in the process.

“Hey, don’t sweat it, kid,” Undyne says light-heartedly, but with meaning as she continues. “It took Alphys and me years to finally admit to how we feel, and look at us now,” she leans over and wraps her girlfriend in a hug, Alphys eeping gently but still pleased by the action. “I couldn’t be happier.”

“U-Undyne…”

 _She really has a way with words,_ you think, feeling yourself untense, if maybe only a little. _And actions for that matter._

Your food arrives shortly, paired with several small dishes for sriracha and soy sauce, which you all make quick use of, as well as a refill of your soda. A comfortable quiet graced with hums of pleasure and gasps of enjoyment falls on your little table, and you’re happily digging into a roll of cucumber, daikon, and some kind of paste when Undyne brings it up again, which causes you to loosen your hold enough on your chopsticks that your food falls back to your plate.

“So what’s keeping you back?”

“Undyne,” Alphys squeaks an admonishment around her full mouth, but Undyne isn’t put off.

“What,” she asks with a shrug. “I’m not pressuring them, I’m just curious.”

Unaware of how to answer that without accidentally spilling all of your insecurities onto the table, you settle for something small, and yet still true: “We haven’t spent a lot of time together…”

“Why didn’t you say so! We can just invite him over for lunch,” Undyne is grinning wide even as your heart sinks to the bottom of your stomach.

“I-it is his lunchtime too,” Alphys says, her gaze falling to the side as she frowns for some reason. “Although, he-he really doesn’t eat much.”

Your interest flairs up at this. Why didn’t he eat much? And how did they know about his lunch time? Was it just because it was around noon, and thus the typical time for, well, eating lunch, or was there more to it then that?

“All the more reason,” Undyne chirps back, already pulling out her phone.

“D-do you think Sirius should ask him?” Alphys asks her, and you feel yourself twitch. Did you have any say in this?

“Naw, she reminds me of you. She’ll just chicken out,” Undyne replies, tapping a quick few letters into her phone before it pings in confirmation. “There!”

You really hoped that she didn’t mention anything at all about you being a part of the lunch she was inviting him to.

“How did you ask,” Alphys says, vocalizing your silent question.

“That me, you, and Jones are having lunch and that he should get his butt over here!”

Of course she did.

Undyne’s phone pings again in the middle of her reaching to grab some more of her food, the blue-scaled lady flipping it open as she chewed and swallowing before she answered. “He said yes! _Ha_ , I knew dropping your name would work,” Undyne smirked, but you can only stare.

“Why?”

“Cause I always wanted to be around Alphys even before we were together,” she gushed, leaning down and nuzzling the top of her red girlfriend’s head with her cheek.

Even as you mutely hold a roll of sushi between your chopsticks, dimly aware of Alphys hiding her face behind her hands and Undyne remarking on how cute she was, your heart is pounding nervously in your chest. G was going to be there any minute, any second even! You didn’t even know how far away he was to begin with.

Your eyes flicker down to your square plate, and you shudder to think if he happens to see you eating. What if you got rice on your face? What if you had some right now? You finish off the roll you have between your chop sticks before checking your face as discreetly as you could manage. You only have a little bit of food left, maybe if you just stuff it all in your face without chewing-.

The bell over the door chimes, Undyne perking up in front of you telling you all you need to know about who was already here.

“Hey, bone-butt, over here!”

You swallow the remainder of the roll you had currently in your mouth, coughing slightly when it doesn’t go down as smoothly as you knew it would. You can feel his presence as he draws closer, both in your chest and just in general, until he’s looming beside your seat with a shiver racing down your spine.

“hey.” You can’t tell how he’s feeling with how constant that sliver of a smile of his, but that doesn’t stop a flutter from building up in your stomach at the sight of him.

“H-hey.”

“Sit down, loser, and order something before I change my mind!” Undyne barks, clearly not seeing the fragile state of your composure.

Not picking up on or outright ignoring the impatient hostility in Undyne’s voice G doesn’t glance in her direction, motioning with his free hand at the space beside you. “this seat taken?”

You shake your head mutely before starting to move over, G removing himself from the lean he had taken on the booth. Had he been that close the entire time? Flustered you can hardly move fast enough, and you make a small sound when his weight presses against your side for a moment before you’re done moving. 

“W-would you like anything, G?” Alphys is asking, trucking through talking to the guy directly in a way that you had completely fallen on the wayside in since your time apart. Texting was just so, so much easier when you didn’t have to be a total mess in front of him, and if you weren’t wrong, you could definitely feel a hitch in your throat starting to build. Or was that something else?

“i’m covered,” he replies, and glances at you. “mind swinging that my way?” He means the glass of soy sauce bottle near your plate, which you pick up and hand over with the barest brush of his phalanges against yours. “thanks, siri.”

Your face could warm more, but it’s already pretty damn high, the butterflies in your stomach liking the sound of your shortened name on his lips, _teeth_ a little too much.

Then it one smooth motion he pops off the lid of the soy sauce bottle with his thumb, lifting it up and pouring the contents directly into his mouth.

“Gross, dude! Don’t do that,” Undyne winces, but you’re still watching him, your gaze completely unbroken from his the entire time. Frankly you were amazed, and, maybe just a little aroused?

_Just a tiny bit?_

Admittedly that last bit was a probably hundred percent him just staring you down as barely an inch of separated the two you but _who_ guzzled soy sauce without flinching?

“temmie got your tongue,” the yellow eyed skeleton says, sinking his chin into one hand, which he props up by his elbow onto the table. You don’t know what to respond to even if you could.

Instead you felt yourself let go of the minute amount of air you had been holding that entire time, your hand flying up but not entirely soon enough to hide the breathless laugh that escapes from your lips when you look away from. Alphys is twitching across from you but you don’t look up, forcing yourself to breathe properly for once, deeply to get ahold of yourself, until your eyes begin to sting-.

_Shit._

Why hadn’t you noticed before? It was obvious now that you smell it and he’s so close, but you had a million chances prior to pick up on it. Maybe it was because you had hardly been taking in air since he entered the shop and now he’s so. damned. close. to you. But now that your body has taken it in, the effects are impossible to ignore.

The slight tightness of your throat, the growing discomfort in your eyes, and that the warmth under your skin that you had previously chocked it off to just being nerves, but was actually something worse then social anxiety.

“Hey, Jones, you okay?” Undyne had to notice your ensuing mini-battle, and you glance over to them, still holding your hand over your mouth as you nod. “Is that _punk_ weirding you out?”

You eyes shoot automatically to G, and they widen, catching onto the downturned way his mouth has gone before you can stop them.

“N-no. Jus-just allergies,” you reply, your fear growing when you begin to sniffle.

“A-are you allergic to so-something you ate?” Alphys is starting to looked panicked, even a little guilty, and that causes your already preexisting guild to spike.

“N-no, it’s, um,” you pause, not wanting to go further even with all their eyes on you. What were you supposed to say? That you were kind of allergic to the way G smelled? That would go over well! “Ca-can I-?” You glance at the skeleton, motioning with your question, and he gets it pretty quickly, standing from the booth and stepping back as you slide out. “I-I’m gonna step outside.”

“Si-Sirius,” you hear Alphys pipe from behind you, but you’re already leaving the restaurant, walking around the front counter and pushing open the front door with a brush of cold air to greet you.

Once outside you walk away from the door, stopping on the edge of the shop before breathing in and out, as deeply as you can manage with out choking. It takes you only a second, but then you begin to shake furiously. In your rush you had forgotten your coat inside, your customary thin sleeved shirt nothing in way of protection against the weather.

 _Shit, shit._ You can’t exactly go back inside, can you? Then you’d have to see their faces, see the way G was frowning, as if riddled with disappointment and self-disgust.

Wait, no that was just you.

So you stand there, shivering, trying to make up your mind, until you hear the bell toll again nearby. You’re too focused on trying to decide if your well enough to go in, say your goodbyes, and flee that you don’t notice right away that G is standing in front of you rather than in the restaurant.

“hey, hey, siri,” he’s saying, drawing close as his eyes swept over your pathetic form. At least he couldn’t see your arm, but ever since you had been given your words, you had been wearing long sleeves more, and more often. “you’re freezing,” he comments, and you realize what he’s doing before he’s done removing his arms from his jacket, beginning to sweep it over your shoulders until you react. You move away from the jacket, but in doing so move closer to him, the odd warmth radiating off his body bringing a longing in you to just step closer, while that lingering odor of tobacco makes you want to do anything but.

“I’m-I’m okay!”

G flinches as if you’ve insulted him, and he stops what he’s doing, letting his coat hang from one hand. “h-hey, about what i did, in there-.”

“That, that wasn’t it,” you interject, feeling worse that you interrupted him but not wanting him to assume such a thing. “I-I didn’t mind that. It-it was actually kind of, kind of cool? Bu-but I-.”

G cuts you off with a rueful chuckle, and you want to stop right there and give in. Just smother yourself in his coat and act like everything is okay, and would only ever be okay, because nothing about that sound made you happy. “you can tell me, i can take it.”

You start to try, huffing gently when you fail. You can’t meet his eyes, but you again, your voice small when you let it out: “I’m, I’m really sensitive to smoke.”

What follows is a flash of silence, and you begin to look up, fearing the worse, before he chuckles again. It’s not as bad as it was, but he still looks dark around the eyes, something about the expression he gave on his skull making you think that he was tired then. “you coulda told me, i can take a hint.”

You shake your head a little hard, not liking where this was leading. “I, I didn’t want you to leave. I, I like spending time with y-you.”

G looks taken off guard by this, and the strangest thing happens, a small smudge of blue gracing his cheekbones in a way that you could have never imagined was possible before. The sight of it is enough for your typical curiosity to show itself, and when G smiles, you almost think that he’s embarrassed.

“s’at so?” He says, his voice a quiet rumble that you can feel despite the space between you. “i’ll keep it in mind, for the future,” he says, and you don’t know if he means your allergies or what you had just said, but you’re still weightless following his words, nonetheless. “i’m gonna head out. get changed. maybe…we could hang out later?”

This was so not going in the way you expected to, but it was going so much better at the same time. He wanted to spend time with you later? For the second time in a day. “C-cool. I’ll tell the girls?”

“heh,” G rubbed the back of his skull in a way that could only be described as endearing, that blueness returning that you were just dying to know more about. “i was thinkin just you and me. if that’s cool?” Here his eye has returned from skimming the building behind you or something to landing back on you.

There was no way in heck that he was looking sheepish right now, you were reading the mood in entirely the wrong way, but that doesn’t stop you from being awkward yourself when you reply.  “That’s cool! I mean, really cool. I would like that, if you would.”

“heh, yeah,” his reply is smooth, paired with the pocketing of one of his hands while he gripped his jacket with his other he’s back to looking casual, and you dare to think that his smile looks wider than normal. “should get inside. don’t want cha to catch a cold.”

“O-oh! Right.” Somehow you had completely forgotten that you were standing outside in below freezing temperatures, which raised the question, did G really need to wear a jacket at all? Rather than settle on that thought of how well G could feel things without nerves, which would inevitably lead to you wondering if he could feel you at all…well, there it is. “I-I’ll see you later,” you manage to say, grateful for the third or fourth time that you face couldn’t possibly get any redder, but that doesn’t stop G from titling his head slightly, picking up on the curious shift in your voice. 

He says nothing about it though, thankfully, and slings his coat back over his shoulders with ease. “see you, siri,” he says, while you reply with a redundant, “B-bye.” You watch him for a moment after he turns his back and leaves and then the cold gets the better of you, forcing you back into the restaurant where a blanket of warmth settles onto your shoulders pleasantly.

Undyne and Alphys are waiting when you return, the former more than a little interested while Alphys was just concerned. “A-are you alright, Sirius,” she asks as you slide back into the booth.

“I’m better, yeah.” It’s true enough. The itch in your throat has abated slightly and your eyes are a little watery, but it was nothing you couldn’t deal with. Luckily your allergy had never been a very serious one to deal with, as long as you didn’t go rolling around in G’s clothing or anything like that you would be fine.

 _But would it be worth it?_ You promptly backhand that thought into the recesses of your mind, _no, bad._

“Where did G go?

“He had to go do something,” you answer, not wanting to go into specifics about what that was. “We’re sort of hanging out later?”

“Ha! Right on, Jones,” Undyne congratulates, slapping you with ease from across the table on your shoulder in the same place as last time, which twinges in complaint. “Show that loser who’s boss!”

“I-it’s just as friends, of course,” you stutter, seeing that glimmer in her eyes even if it hadn’t been brought up.

“ _Of course_ ,” she gives you a dramatic wink, which you can only tell is a wink with her one eye because she leans in a bit while doing it, smirking all the while.

“I-I’m happy for you, Sirius!” Alphys is less conspiratorial, grinning her own small fanged grin in a purely celebratory fashion. “A-and G will spend less time in the lab for once. S-so every-everyone’s happier.”

“That punk still grinding his way through everything?” Undyne asks this with a frown, and you think that maybe she is concerned a little, despite how she had treated G earlier. The topic reminds you of Alphys’ comment on G not eating, and how G looked outside, like he was simply tired.

“Is he okay?” You can’t help but ask, completely forgetting your own anxiety for a moment when your stomach rolls in discomfort at the idea of him being anything but. “He works at a lab, you said?”

“Y-yes. I’m working for the local university, and-and after they found out about G’s interests and expertise, they began funding his research also.”

“Wha-what does he study?”

“Quantum physics is one of his fields,” she replies, and her answer leaves your brain stuttering to halt for a moment. G was a scientist? And he was studying _quantum physics_? G looked like he should be a musician, or maybe the head of a benevolent gang of motorcyclists, not a physicist of all things. “Although,” Alphys’ voice brings you back to the present. “I-I can’t tell you why he’s doing it.” She appears less like she doesn’t know what he’s studying and more regretful that she can’t tell you what it is exactly. Was there some sort of secret involved when scientists had projects underway, or was it something personal? You really couldn’t guess either way.

“But, quantum physics? That’s amazing,” you breathe out, your eyes unfocusing for a moment. Paired with G’s personality and appearance, his very existence to you was just becoming outright _sinful_.

 _And he’s_ my _Soul Mate?_ Could Words be wrong?

“ _Pah_ , you should have seen the guy in the Underground,” Undyne snorts, still upset at the thought of G it seems. “The guy used to be a border guard and sell hotdogs as the same time.”

Hotdog seller to scientist? How did that work out exactly?

“N-not all of the time,”” Alphys interjected. “He-he also had a telescope he rented out. A-and he still worked at the lab, un-until…”

Alphys trails off, and you notice that they both appear just to be… _sad_ , all of a sudden, Undyne perhaps even more so than Alphys, who pats her girlfriend gently on the arm in comfort. Undyne gives her a slight smile, but it’s something.

“Anyways, you’ll have to ask the bonehead about all that,” she states, picking up her drink and sucking up the remainder of the tapioca balls at the bottom of its cup.

You know better than to push the topic, and after that the conversation becomes less stilted, settling on safer topics such as what was due to come on that night. By the time you three leave the shop, you’ve been bullied into watching a marathon of a show on the weekend, and Undyne has insisted she give you a ride home in her truck that you can’t deny.

After all, you have something you’re doing later that you have to prepare for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not a lot happen. chapter important set up for more to come. what undyne and alphie not want to admit? what g have planned? what happen to g in past? why siri not just admit stuff already, gosh.  
> 


	6. Of Good Food and Better Company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've reached 100+ kudos! I never thought I'd see the day, but I am so, so grateful for everyone's attention, and your lovely comments. You guys have no idea how great it makes me feel when you drop some words in the comment box or leave a kudos for me to smile over! You're all just so awesome!  
> 

You arrive home at four with a text in your inbox from G confirming that you would hang out at six. Where exactly had been up to him, and in so many words he suggested: “a joint a friend of mine runs”. You were guessing that perhaps you were going to a restaurant, or something of the like, but didn’t bug G for answers. You had two hours to get ready, and every minute between now and then was important.

You first matter of business is jumping in the shower, where you turn the heat on high and scrub every inch of your skin before washing your hair twice. A jock classmate had been well-known for his oddly soft hair, which was probably due to money but which he wrote off as being a part of his “double-shampoo session”. You’d tried it for a few nights years ago after finding out about his “secret” but hadn’t picked it up again until tonight due to sheer laziness and lack of cash.

By the time you step out of the shower, your skin smarts in random patches and your short hair is wild. It doesn’t take long before it begins drying, but in the meantime you check yourself over. It wasn’t often that you examined your appearance, let alone looked in a mirror. You just rarely saw the point, unless you had hair to tweeze or a weird blotch to prod at. Freckles dot your skin here and there, old scars shine faintly if you turn your body a certain way in the light. It doesn’t take long before you grow uncomfortable about looking at yourself, and you can only hope that G thinks differently.

You throw on a towel and step into your room, beginning to close the door behind you until you hear BP entering the apartment.

“Jones?” He calls out to make sure, an old habit that came about as a result of losing his last home to thugs. Even prior to it being burned down he, as well as other monsters, had a problem with looters, and finding the front door unlocked didn’t always mean to him that you were home.

“I’m here!” You call out, closing the door enough to where you can lean your head out without showing off the rest of your body, still you hide behind your bedroom wall, coloring a little when BP enters the hallway.

“Got plans tonight? MK’s script for Mustardseed has like four lines but his set of hands are busy at some birthday tonight.”

“Uh, no, sorry. A friend asked me out, kind of.”

“Kind of? How do you kind of ask someone out?”

“He said he wanted to hang, somewhere. At a restaurant, I think? I’m not sure but-.”

“Dude, you’re dating someone?” You can’t tell if BP is horrified or what about this revelation, but you’re too busy trying to clear up his mistake to question or be hurt by it.

“N-no! G’s just a friend,” no sooner do you say this does the, yeah that’s definitely horror, deepens on his face.

“Why the _heck_ are you hanging out with that guy?”

You bristle slightly at this, really uncomprehending how both Undyne and BP could apparently have beef with G. “You know G?”

“ _Pft_ , who doesn’t know that dude,” BP shrugs, the freaky face he was wearing before falling away. “We kind of worked together sometimes? He was the guy who picked up MK the other night.”

“ _What_?” That meant that G was literally outside your building the night before you ever properly met. Had you followed BP downstairs to see him and MK off, your meeting would have been much sooner. And maybe less awkward on your end? At least you would have had BP as a buffer or something.

“Yeah. So what gives?”

You take a second to consider your options before you sigh, gritting your teeth before you reply: “I’ll uh tell you in a sec?”

When you close your bedroom door behind you take a few quick steps to your closet, swinging the door open and glancing over your “nice clothes” for something to wear. Anything that was prettier than a t-shirt and jeans and helped show that you cared enough to actually put effort into your appearance hung in there, away from wrinkles. You flip wildly through whats there, irritated when your towel starts to sag and you have to grab at its top to hold it in place while you stand in your otherwise empty bedroom.

By the time you give up on looking presentable half the contents of the closet and your dresser are on the floor, excitement thrumming through your veins and sweat threatening to gather in every cranny of your body before you can leave your bedroom. You’re wearing a sweater dress and jeans combo, because even if it was a million degrees outside nothing short of a million bucks would get you to flash some decent leg. Your really-not-slush-resistant old chucks are by the couch, really the only shoes you actually own, and so is BP, squinting at you like he’s wondering if he’s seeing Nessie for the first time or an oddly shaped duck. 

“Okay, what’s going on?”

 

“What the _fuck_?”

“I know, it’s really weird,” you grumble mostly to yourself, but BP’s too busy ranting in front of you between the couch where you sit and the coffee table to perhaps notice.

“You get jumped by the same guys that screwed you before, have dinner with the queen, and meet G in the space of what, four days? To be fair I knew about the queen-.”  
“Thanks a lot for that by the way-.”

“-but your Soul Mate? Seriously,” you think that BP is going to descend further into the madness with the way that he’s gesturing with his hands like that, but then they wrap around his stomach suddenly and he’s bending over _laughing_.

“ _Hey!”_ You protest, feeling personally attacked, and he sobs out his reply: “Of course that idiot would make a _pun_ be the first thing his Soul Mate hears! And you’ve got that stuck on your arm! _For life_!” BP’s laughter is borderline maniacal, and while he’s in the middle of that your phone pings.

(5:45) Bone Man

_ready to skid-addle? im idling by the curb_

BP stops losing it long enough to see you biting back a laugh of your own, and you hold up your phone so that he can see the text before explaining: “He said he has a motorcycle.”

BP is a mess on the floor when you leave the apartment, opting to take the stairs in hopes that the exercise will shake the butterflies out of your stomach. But when you push open the apartment complex door with your back and swing around, your breath escapes you in a whoosh.

G is at the curb like he promised, and leaning against a hunk of dangerous metal on two tires. The bike is pretty dated from what you can tell, but it gleams in the nearby street lamp light, obviously well taken care of. G is leaning up against it until he sees you, righting himself with a smile and a wave.

_This isn’t fair._

You try to get a hold of yourself, and take a few steps down the concrete stairs to meet your friend? acquaintance? when the door behind you opens again.

“Hey, bud!”

BP stops beside you on the stairs, grabbing one of your hands and stuffing something in it that feels like paper. “Free tickets for Midsummer’s Night.”

“BP-,” you start to say that he shouldn’t give away a ticket to his first big play, but he cuts you off as if he already knows what to expect.

“Take them, Jones. I still owe you, remember?” And he’s down the stairs, going to meet a G that’s been watching your short exchange.

“Hey, buddy,” BP greets him, and they bump fists, BP glancing at you as you walk over to meet them. “They're as self-aware as a paper bag. Hurt them and I’ll claw your Soul out through your rib cage,” the grin he wears is nothing short of unsettling, and he leaves on that note, walking down the sidewalk to the parking lot a block away where his junker is waiting.

You can feel your mouth opening to make some sort of excuse, but nothing comes to you. That was…unexpected. But G’s not in the least bit fazed, rolling his skull towards you with that yellow eye shining warmly in the dark: “hey, siri.”

A gentle huff of a laugh escapes you in a cloud of dragon’s breath, and the tension just rolls off your shoulders. “Hello, G.”

“ready to ride,” he asks, handing you a helmet that had been propped up on his bike. But as you reach for it uncertainty, he pauses, his ever-there grin drooping a little. “your wrist?”

You look at the spot he’s questioning and understand what he means right away, the bandages having been removed without a mark left behind. “O-oh, I’m all better. I’m, I’m sort of a quick healer.”

“no, kidding, huh?” Still holding onto the helmet with one hand he takes your upheld wrist with the other. “not a blemish,” he mummers, turning your wrist over slowly, and brushing your branching blue capillaries with his thumb as your pulse quickens.  “i was worried that it might be hard to hang on.”

When he lets go of your wrist, your skin grows cold again, but your palms are quickly filled with a motorcycle helmet. “It, it’s been awhile since I last rode a bike,” you admit, glancing over the ride wryly, and he gently chuckles.

“i was pretty nervous the first time i rode it.”

“Re-really?” That kind of emotion just didn’t seem like something G was capable of.

“yeah, i uh,” here he scratches the side of his skull, glancing away from you. “i kind of drove into a car the first time.”

Your eyes widen dramatically, discomfort filling your stomach at the image you have in your head. “Were you okay?!” Was that where he got those cracks in his skull, from a motorcycle accident?

“yeah, no worries,” he waves his hands, and you ease up a little. “it was parked.”

You can’t stop the snort before it escapes you, but your hand flies up nonetheless, smothering your laughter. G’s skull has turned a flush of blue, a sign of his magic moving around under his bones perhaps. You’re immediately fascinated by the sight, but you fear for a moment that this is a sign that you’ve offended him. “I-I’m so sorry.”

“heh, it’s cool.” You look at the helmet in your hands and then give in, shoving it onto your head with your eyes closed until its place, and blinking them open to see G on the other side of the plastic visor to reaching forward to adjust it slightly. “all set?”

You nod mutely, unsure if he could hear you very well from inside the helmet, and follow his wave towards the bike. The motorcycle barely jostles after you swing your leg over and sit, suddenly rather intimidated by its size. _That wasn’t a strange thought at all._

G hops on after your settled, sitting in front of you and between your legs snugly, the bike not moving the slightest under his weight until he kicks back the stand. Feeling the movement your hands itch to wrap around him, to hang onto something for security, and G looks behind him as if sensing your thoughts.

“i’m here.”

Those two words scare away some of your uncertainty, and after briefly wondering what to do with yourself, you reach forward and wrap your arms around him. You don’t hold on too tightly or too loosely, only just enough for what seems appropriate, not wanting to smother him with your presence, and the bike rumbles to life underneath you.

G moves off the curb slowly, then faster as he passes the cars parked along the road, a feeling of vertigo coursing under your skin as he drives towards the nearest stop light. It’s not so bad, you think, beginning to enjoy watching as the two of you drive by the empty cars and the gently lit buildings of your street. Then he pulls up to a light connected to a street full of moving vehicles, and your hold tightens instinctually when the bike moves again, it’s speed dramatically increaseing.

It’s almost terrifying at first. Buildings of brick and stone and concrete line the streets as you zoom down the road, and the vehicles are sleek glimmers of metal, flashes of light in shades of red, and blue, and yellow, and white sliding across their surfaces from every street, stop, and window light that they pass under or beside. You can’t feel the wind in your hair with the helmet encompassing it, but you can feel it whip through your open jacket, causing the material to flutter. You’re aware that your back is freezing, but your front is swamped with warmth, heat radiating from G underneath the swath of his jacket that you’re pressed against.  When his bike rolls to a stop for a light, he props it up with one long leg and you can feel him glance back at you over his shoulder.

“all steady?”

“Yeah, I’m great,” and you discover with wonder in your voice that you definitely are. Adrenaline is starting to course through your blood, and you’re finding yourself impatient for the bike to get moving again. “I think I can defiantly see why you bought it.”

A chuckle rumbles through his frame that you can feel in your arms and you can feel his smirk in your chest: “what can i say, starlight? i’m _bone_ to be wild.”

Your shocked laugh trails along with the bike as soon as the light turns green, your cheeks blushing brightly underneath your helmet. _What did he call me?_

When the motorcycle stops and you jump off, your legs feel like jelly, but you’re vibrating with energy. Pulling off the helmet with one tug you take a deep unnecessary breath, the cold of the air around you hitting the light sheen of sweat on your face and cooling your skin instantly. You can feel yourself beaming when G looks you over, but for a moment you don’t care how disheveled your hair must be, or that your clothing might be need of a straitening because you’re just _happy_.

“you okay, starlight,” G asks, but there’s that additional lift to his mouth that you’ve learned to look out for telling you that he clearly knows what up.

“ _That was awesome!”_  You push your fingers through your hair, a knot snagging on your knuckles that jilts your mood slightly. “Wait, what did you call me?”

“uh,” he can’t meet your eyes at first, that flush of blue returning that captivates your curiosity. “sorry, was it weird?”

“Uh,” you parrot dumbly, then shake your head slightly, but you can’t get rid of the knots your stomach has wound itself in. No one had given you a nickname in….years. A shortened version of your first name, sure, but something like...like _starlight_. Your face is blazing with heat and color, and you jerk the helmet upwards, trying to hide it from view. What are you going to _do_? You can barely breathe let alone _reply_ intelligently. Your thoughts alone are just mush, and you almost flinch when a hand comes up and pushes the helmet down. G is much closer than before, and your dimly aware of the fact that he really did change clothes, because he smells nothing like cigarettes from where you standing. He actually changed for you?

“siri,” his voice comes and your eyes dart up, back down, and up again, snagging onto not just one pupil but two: the normal lamp light disc in one eye socket, and a glowing blue in the other. Only the helmet is separating the two of you, and every inch of your body wants to move in, just a little closer, just a step more, if only to quell the feeling of your Soul trembling wildly in your chest.

“I-I like it.”

 

The place G takes you to is more of a tavern then the restaurant you expected, mummers of talk and laughter filtering through its brilliantly stain glass windows, which shift in colors of red, orange, and yellow. Over the large wooden door is a sign that reads in swirling, neon orange: _Grillby’s._

Just standing outside you can feel the heart radiating from within, the sidewalk that runs before it entirely snowless, but the warmth grows brighter when G opens the door.

Sounds spill out into the night, and you can hear faint music in them, something catchy and on repeat, but not at all tiring. When you enter with G you’re greeted with the sight of a floor dotted with round tables with tall seats, with booths running alongside one bricked wall. The snapping of balls and the leaning figures of several characters in one corner tells you that there’s a pool table, and the wood beneath your feet is dark, and sturdy. A bar is at the opposite end of the room, and behind it shelves of glassy bottles that wink in the comfortable, low light. It all gleams with newness, and the air is rich with something almost spicy in nature, but not uncomfortable. Whatever cold that had tried to hang onto your shoulders as you walked in was long gone, but you aren’t sweating under your layers.  _Grillby’s_ is an oasis, and not just because it’s warm when outside it’s near freezing, but also because nearly every head that turns to glimpse towards your entrance belongs to a monster, when heads were an option.

There are a few humans scattered here and there, but mostly it’s made up of monsterkind. Tall and short, huge or squat, spiky, furry, scaled, hard-, and smooth-skinned, _Grillby’s_ was a mixed crowd of all sorts, and faintly you can feel yourself frowning as your cheeks color with the attention, as small as it is.

“everything cool, siri?” G speaks up next to you, seeing the look on your face, and you blink, aware of the impression you must give.

“Y-yeah, déjà vu, is all,” you admit, something in your head telling you that you had been here before somehow.

G leads the way to the bar, and more than one voice calls out to him in greeting, G stopping briefly along the way next to the nearest tables to shake a hand, but one of them brushes his shoulder, a monster that’s more fish like then Undyne in the way that they literally have a fish head.

“The chief doin’ okay, G?” They ask, concern written on their inebriated scales. G’s expression wanes, but he says nothing, nodding and moving on. The fish-monster doesn’t ask for anything more, although you look back as you pass him, noticing their duck-like companion shaking their head as they sigh deeply.

What was that about?

But even as apart of you hangs onto what just happened, the other is quickly overcome by the sight of the man blazing before you on the other side of the bar.

“hey, grillbz,” G greets the literal man on fire, the elemental bobbing his chin in acknowledgement. When you slide onto one of the stools sitting at the bar, you become aware of the fact that all of the warmth in the room is coming from a central point, and it’s him. Grillby turns his face towards you, no mouth insight, and whatever nose he has that props up his glasses is blending in with his flaming skin. The eyes that take you in are there though, a pair of almond shaped and glowing like sun spots. “meet siri jones, protector of the commonfolk,” G states with a sliver of a grin that’s somehow lazy in appearance, and you can’t mistake the slight jerk of attention the elemental gives when he hears his friend.

Grillby offers you a hand that you take without hesitation, wonder bubbling underneath your skin when you hold it. You grip his hand as firmly and amiably as you’ve been taught, and his own is strong, belaying a power and solidarity you had in no way been expecting, and even if he is made up of flames, your skin doesn’t burn at the contact. In a way, it’s like taking hold of a mug of hot cocoa to cool, and you find that you like the feeling, your muscles wanting to angle yourself closer to his natural body temperature for further comfort after the cold of the outside.

Grillby’s laugh is deep and crackling when you part, the elemental looking pleased by something. “G mentioned you.”

“D-did he really?” You stutter, suddenly aware that you’re in the presence of someone that might be a good friend to your Soul Mate.

“Nothing bad, I promise,” Grillby rumbles, and G coughs slightly from beside you. Your eyes sweep towards him for answers, definitely interested, but G is rubbing at his dusky blue cheek again with one long bones finger.

“anyways,” G starts, softly clearing his throat. “grillbz here makes the best burger and fry combo in the hemisphere, and he does vegan. i do recommend.”

“Oh, uh, sure. That’s sounds wonderful, act-actually, if you don’t mind that I order a vegan burger, or jus-just the fries are fine.”

“it’s no flame off his back, grillz has you covered,” G says. “it wasn’t always easy getting meat Underground; there were a lot of alternatives.”

“C-cool, I’d love to try one,” you admit, turning back to Grillby, who nods quietly and sends G one more glance before disappearing through a swinging door with a small round window set into it. You see what must be a part of a kitchen before the door cuts off your line of sight.

“comfortable?” G asks, and you return your eyes to him. G has begun leaning on the counter in the same pose from earlier in the sushi restaurant, so his attention is entirely centered on you.

“Y-yeah, it’s really nice in here,” you reply with earnest, standing to remove your coat so you can drape it on your chair and it’s more so soft when you sit down again. “Grillby seems to be a gentleman.”

“heh,” G’s eye flickers to the closed door, his other eye socket having long since gone dark again. “yeah, you can say he’s one heck of a bar- _tender.”_

“Did you just-?” You cut off your own question with laughter, G’s own twitching wider. Still amused, you become more so honest: “He’s really amazing. I-I mean, I’ve heard about elementals, but seeing him in person is, it’s different.”

G makes a noise that must be his usual chuckle, but it’s quieter, his toothy grin falling a smidgen again, which you immediately wish you could make right. “you should meet his daughter, she’s a regular _spit_ -fire in comparison.”

“You’re going to take every chance you can get to make a fire pun, aren’t you?”

“what’s wrong, siri, feelin’ a little hot under the collar,” he asked in challenge, that eye of his shining like a gold coin.

“Water you mean, I’m perfectly cool with this situation,” you reply smoothly by some miracle, and G’s smile widens as a reward. “I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but he’s back with the food, and I didn’t order any chili for you to make pun of.”

For the first time a question of yours is answered: sentient skeletons _can_ cry, because G is doing it right now, hunched over the bar with one hand over his gaping jaw and beads of tears at the corners of each scrunched eye socket.  You’re aware that Grill by has sat down your plate and that somewhere in the background dogs are barking at the excitement, but you only have eyes for the hobbled G, hiding your delighted grin behind both of your hands to keep him from seeing.

All you can think is thank god for pun websites.

“g-grillbz, be my best man. i’m marrying siri tomorrow and no one can stop me.”

Grillby responds with a crackles from where he stands, “I get off at 5,” and then slides on down the bar to a waving customer.

G is still chuckling when you pick up your burger. It’s pretty big in your hands and the seeded bun is lightly toasted, and when you bite into it, it crunches slightly before giving into softness. But it’s the burger itself that gets you. You don’t know what it is, but it’s nutty and rich and smoky but sweet at the same time, and at once every tired muscle in your body relaxes. G is sipping on a bottle of barbeque sauce Grillby has left him and watching you in his peripherals as hearts fill your eyes, and when you swallow the bite you’ve savored wisps of smoke trail from your throat in small clouds as your speak: “That, _oh_ , that’s cool. That is so cool.”

“feeling relaxed?”

“I-is this made with magic,” you have to ask, taking another bite as he answers.

“one hundred percent monster certified,” he replies, and something lightly blue and slightly pointed comes out from between his teeth, swiping away a bead of sauce on the edge of his mouth for the barest span of a second before it disappears again. G may not notice but you swallow roughly, shoving this new information away in your brain to try and contemplate later: was that a _tongue_?

You have to look away and clear your throat discreetly, distracting yourself with sitting down your burger and reaching for one of the matchstick fries in the basket beside your plate. As small as it is, it’s no less flavorful then your sandwich, and although the spices aren’t anywhere nearly enough to dig yourself out of the ditch you’ve fallen into, it’s still wonderful.

“I-I’m sorry G, I’m marrying Grillby for his food.”

G laughs sharply at this, and your Soul practically hums at the sound; you could win wars with the kind of self-satisfaction amusing him gives you.

“s’too late for that, star, he’s already spoken for,” G says, and you follow his pointed finger. Between a couple of the shelved bottles nest to a small mirror is a framed picture of a human with a hair that halos their head in black and lips turned up into a disarming smile.

“That’s-?” You begin to ask, but G gets what you’re saying and finishes for you: “his soul mate.”

G mentioned that Grillby had a daughter, but it wasn’t unheard of for people to have relationships outside of one with their Soul Mate. Sometimes they lost their Mate, or the timing simply wasn’t right, plus Mate’s came in all shapes and sizes, not always exactly romantic or even sexual in nature. It was talked about less often, but you could find it in a best friend or a twin, a hated rival or even, some would say, a pet. It was just about meeting someone that made you happy and whole in a way that no one else could, and vice versa. In Grillby’s case, it could be that being locked Underground had simply made reaching his Soul very, very difficult.

“grillby knew them, before we were sealed away,” G states from beside you, and you nearly choke on the bite in your mouth at the implication: “Do-do you mean-?”

“yeah,” he’s watching you steadily in a way you don’t know what to make of. “fuku was their daughter, but his Mate was killed during the war.”

Something in you instinctively flinches, and your mood withers around the edges. You take your Marked arm in one hand, feeling through the layer of clothing that is your sweater in discomfort. “I…I can’t imagine…” you can’t make up the words, and you don’t even want to ever be capable of imagining what it would be like, losing a Soul Mate. Your Words are pretty new, yes, and even more so is your…relationship with G, but even before then you had poured over books about Soul Mate as a child. You delved into every scrap of information you could find, smothered yourself in Mate-centric movies, and hung onto every possibility that maybe, just maybe, you would someday see your Mark. But it was more then that, as something in you instinctually flinches away from the idea.

“B-but you said that he met them again? Does that mean that they were Reborn?”

“yup, who knows how many times til the barrier fell,” G mummers, as somewhat distracted as you are. You had heard of this also, of Souls reincarnating to meet one another again in a different life. Some said it is preposterous, that someone simply found another Mate, as poly-centric mateships do exist, only they are far less common then bi-centric ones. The only real way of knowing if you were in one some said was if when you met your Mate the two of you still felt something…missing, a feeling that could only be cleared up with meeting the apparent other part of a Soul that had been fractured far more than most. Still, you had never stumbled across an example of Soul Reincarnation, but Grillby and his Mate may well have been a prime example of it. _The Soul knows_ , was a well-known saying, after all. Everything that you were lay within it, and in time it would always recognize when it’s other half approached. 

“You said that they died before the war…”

“uh huh,” G confirmed, watching what you had to ask next with evident interest.

“So, Grillby would have to be….and Fuku, too. They would both have to be, kind of, really old?”

You felt awkward just asking such a thing, but G just chuckled, obviously amused by your discomfort. “yeah, hella old. or, at least grillbz is, fuku not so much.”

Now you're confused, “What do you mean?”

G’s skull darkened slightly, the skeleton taking on a more gloomy expression as the lines around his eye-sockets seemed to deepen. “you’d have to ask grillbz the details,” he replies with a shrug, and the topic drops there. Knowing that asking would be going too far into personal territory, you don’t press the issue, instead returning to your meal and thoroughly enjoying what was left.

A slightly tense, but otherwise comfortable silence falls between the two of you, but you’re sitting there biting your lip in thought: “what’s up, starlight?”

You try not to flush at the name and lose out, but you don’t turn to look him in the eye when your infallible inquisitiveness gets the better of you: “Just how old is your friendship with Grillby, exactly?” G doesn’t answer right away, and you’re starting to panic a little that you’ve really said something wrong. “Like in increments of ten how many years? Not that you look old, you really don’t, but I don’t know a lot of skeletons. But neither does Grillby! How, how would a fire elemental even _look_ older-?”

G’s silence finally bursts, a bark of laughter breaking from between his teeth and making your already red face turn three shades darker. Every fiber of your being wanted to remove yourself from your chair and jump over the bar to hide, you could _feel_ your muscles twitching to spring for the leap that would probably put you in the hospital. G’s hand falls on your shoulder, stilling those thoughts, and that messy mix of nerves versus pleasure at seeing him nearly on the verge of tears again puts your brain into standby mode.

“you humans and your year counting,” G snorts, and your astounded by what he’s implying.

“Do you not have birthdays?”

“we-we have birthdays,” he nearly cracks up again, you can tell. Oh, you had to use that in the future. “we just age slower than humans. grillbz could be a billion before you notice a change.”

“Oh.” That still didn’t answer your question.

“i’ve known him since i was a baby-bones underground,” he states, appearing to have calmed down when his usual blasé vibes fall into place. “nine hundred years ago.”

“The-the war wasn’t that long ago,” you countered, albeit uncertainty. The exact date wasn’t something that was revealed until recently, when surprise, surprise, monsters turned out to be a thing, and the number was hardly as engrained into your memory as you wanted it to be.

He makes a sound around the mouth of his sauce bottle, the closest thing to a snort you had heard from him since meeting G, and you know that’s he’s screwing with you. “i’m twenty-seven.”

“Could have fooled me,” you mumbled, disappointed after you find that your fry basket is empty. You could do with a truck load more to suffocate yourself in. “You’re pretty _cracked up_ for your age.”

This time you know without a doubt that he snorts, his teeth closing tight to prevent any of his sauce from escaping onto the bar counter, and you preen quietly in victory. So satisfied are you that you’re completely caught off guard when _a very large dog holy what_ comes up beside the two of you and barks.

They’re as fluffy and white as the pup G had been leading around a few days ago, but even if you stood on your knees on your stool you knew that they would still clear you’re head by at least a foot. They’re also wearing a specially fitted bombers jacket and black shirt, their legs strangely pulling off the skirt they wear with flair you can only envy.

“hey, g.d.,” G says to them, marveling you somewhat on just how many monster’s had lettered nicknames. G.D. yips to his friend and turns his wet nose towards you, snuffling the air in a way that makes you want to giggle, until they lean down, their mouth wide, and a rough, wet tongue spreads its way across your face.

 _Holy minty dog breath_ , that was disarming, so much so you have to blink a few times and mentally steady yourself. And when you open your mouth it’s to giggle.   You can’t help yourself, you had a thing for animals, especially big fluffy friendly dogs that spoke to you through barks and yips. G.D. is just as delighted, a breeze picking up from behind him from his intense tail-wagging.

“N-nice to meet you, too,” you laugh, and G.D, boofs softly, and just as quickly as he appeared, he turns back to the table where other dogs stand together apparently playing a round of cards just as a spike of warmth settles in your chest. _Weird._ Your déjà vu is acting up again, and your amusement is gone, that odd heat lingering as it goes. Something weird is also going on with G, too. He’s got his eye sockets partly turned towards G.D.’s table, but his eye isn’t there, and frankly the smile he’s wearing is unsettling: tight and not at all as thrilled as he may have thought he appeared to be.

Suddenly you realize what the warmth is coming from, and your bewilderment causes the anger to dampen. What was that from? You aren’t angry at G, you have absolutely no reason to but you’re left unsettled.

“G?” You voice your concern, wishing that you would calm down before he noticed, and G seems to get a hold of himself. The darkness along his eye socket’s fade, and his pupil winks back into existence.

“sorry,” he says, and you don’t know why he’s apologizing. Your irritation thankfully leaving emptiness behind. You don’t know what to do with the quiet between you, so your brain takes over when a thought occurs to you.

“Wait, was that technically a kiss?” G’s shoulders fall away from the tension that had been keeping them straight and narrow since G.D. had left, and he’s snickering all over again, utterly merciless towards your ignorance. “He-he’s a monster, so he’s sentient, but I d-don’t know how to read monster-dog signals? G? G, stop laughing!”

 

“siri. siriiii,” G almost sing-songs, and you deign to glance in his direction, scowling weakly when you see that his teasing grin hasn’t flattened since you left the bar, and you look away again. All the while you had remained mostly silent, only speaking to say an earnest goodbye to Grillby, but G is hardly put off by your stubbornness. “wannah see something cool?”

You chin turns an inch, and you catch yourself, refusing to smile even when G chuckles from beside you. The pair of you are outside by his motorcycle, and although it’s much colder then when you had entered the bar, you’re both still close enough that you could pick up some of the heart radiating from within, so the weather isn’t a bother.

And he said whatever he wanted to show you was cool, and so far he hadn’t failed in that regard yet.

_I’m wrapped around his little finger, aren’t I?_

“What,” you ask brightly, then wince. Damn, you did not mean to let him know how curious you are. But G is all cheekbones for having won.

“we could take the bike back, but i know a short cut, if you’re willing,” he offers, causally leaning against his vehicle as if he’s not dangling a present in front of your face an inch away from your nose.

“Short cut?” You’re really not doing a good job at being miffed with him.

“just a little…magic trick,” that’s the magic word, quite literally, and you completely drop your previous idea altogether, you’d stopped being irritated at him before you even started.

“Like what?”

He stands up from his bike, holding out one of his hands towards me. “just trust me.” This line was Gouda sprinkled with Parmesan, and all wrapped up in a cheese pizza, but that doesn’t stop you from complying. You reach out and take his hand, and he draws you closer. “hold on to my hips.” This you’re slower at doing, clearly not used to being so close to the skeleton, and when you move it’s tentatively. When he lets go of your hand to wrap his arms around your shoulders, scents of leather, barbecue sauce, and something faintly chemical permeate your nose. Your Soul settles into a comforting lull of emotion, and it’s easy to follow suit. “close your eyes, breathe in, and don’t let go.”

You take a breath, and before you can completely shut your eyes, the world falls away from around you.

 

It lasts as much time as it takes for your heart to beat, and the need for air isn’t even a starting worry in your head when you open your eyes again. G steps away from you slowly, and you notice what has changed.

The parking lot is gone, and gone with it is Grillby’s bar, the flower shop across the street, and the motorcycle resting behind G. Instead you’re standing along a familiar road you know is your own, and where it should be is your apartment complex, which isn’t where you should be at all.

“We just teleported.”

“yup.”

“We dematerialized.”

“affirmative.”

“And rematerialized here?”

“exactly.”

“You, _you_ can make that happen.”

“i’m a skele-man of…maybe two talents.”

“G!” You yelp indignantly, does he really not understand what you're getting at?!

“siri!” He’s smirking, of course he is.

“You’re amazing!”

“heh,” G scratches the back of his blue skull, and it all suddenly makes sense to you. He was _blushing_. He had been blushing that _entire_ time. The fact that he’s even capable of such humility despite everything he was, that in itself was humbling for _you_.  And now you’re blushing, your cheeks nearly aching at the strain you’ve given them from your smile, the very one you try to cover up as you stand mere inches away from him.

The chirp of your phone from your jacket pocket startles you instantly, both of your eyes darting to the offending place where it’d hiding. He laughs gently, pointing, “better get that.”

You didn’t want to, but if it would diffuse your embarrassment then maybe it was worth it.  Opening your phone and holding it up you see a message from your roommate staring you in the face and making you squint.

(10:30) Grouchypants

_I’m going to rip off my ex-boss’s arms and slap him with them, I swear by the stars._

“love note from a friend?” G questions when you snicker sympathetically, and you snap the phone closed again.

“BP keeps getting inspirational calls from his old boss.”

G’s mouth twitches but doesn’t turn up. “you close?”

“With BP,” you ask pointlessly. _Of course_ , he meant BP’s _old boss_. And technically G’s old one, you suppose. You still need a full explanation of that. “He’s great. We live together.”

There’s an uncomfortable pang in your chest and you hold your hand to it quizzically. What was wrong with you tonight? Heart burn?

“heh, s’it’s cool of bp doesn’t mind us hanging out together.”

This pulls your eye brows together, and you hum in question. Are they fighting, or something? Was that what earlier had been about, what with the threatening of the livelihood of G’s Soul for your sake? “Y-yeah, of course. Why...why wouldn’t he be?”

“he’s just always been really grumpy, you know?” He says, and you feel like you’re missing something. “but you sound sweet together.”

Now you’re even more lost. “Yeah, we’re good friends. He might be my best, actually,” you admit to yourself, liking the idea, and you hope that maybe BP won’t mind you saying as much.

“…friends?”

You stop spacing out for the moment at the lilt in his voice. What did he think you were- _oh_. 

“Oh! Yeah, we’re friends! Just friends, good friends, I hope. I don’t, we don’t share the same room. We’re _roommates_ , but not, not like _that_. BP has Frederick after all.” Frederick is another monster you have yet to meet, although he's one of the few topics in the world that BP doesn’t gush about with bitterness, so you know he has to be great but you really don’t even know what he looks like.

Your bones have relaxed despite how embarrassed you are, and you can’t tell why, but you don’t mind at all, because G is smiling that smile of his, that one that’s just enough wider than his typical lazy drawl of teeth that it really matters to you.

“What?” You ask, and you really want to know what he’s thinking, but he shakes his skull minutely.

“you have an okay night?”

Okay was putting it lightly. You had gone through ten mood swings in the course of it and don’t understand why, but you wish you could hit the rewind button so you could do it all over again. “It was great.” You know you’re smiling like an idiot, but you just can’t help it.

“great.”

“Cool.”

“cool.”

You want to spin in a circle, you want to dance, you want just _do_ something you would more than likely regret a beat later that involves his face and yours which would probably end terribly since you haven’t done it with anyone else in a long, long time. But as much as his gaze grounds you to the earth it makes you light on your feet and you don’t know if you can move an inch without stumbling all over yourself. _I_ _can only dream._

“wanna hang out again, sometime?”

He has no idea. “Yes.”

“night, starlight.” Has the North and South Pole just switched places or have you forgotten to breathe again?

“Goodnight, G.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was this chapter okay? I kinda wanted it to be longer, but I guess there will be tons more of Siri n' G action later, and this isn't the last time you'll see Grillby and the Surface's hottest new hangout spot.  
> 


	7. Of a Story Told and a Mistake Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mixed feelings chapter alert: for siri, and for me. it's a bumpy one.

_There’s pain and there’s darkness and you can see through it no matter how hard you try. Where is he? Where is he? You can’t hear him, why can’t you hear him? You try to call out his name and stunned to find that your mouth doesn’t fit properly in your head, not as it should. There’s smoke and there’s fire and there’s darkness and there’s him! He’s there, he’s okay, he’s not okay, he’s still. He’s so still. Even when he slept he would mumble or kick his leg like a dog after a bone, he had never been so still before why won’t he move who are these people brother? brother!_

_s t a y a w a y f r o m m y b r o t h e r_

You’re awake, but you don’t want to be. You curl up into yourself as tight as you can, every inch of your body trembling in fear. _I don’t deserve this,_ you think and you don’t know why, and only the growing wetness of the sheet under your face tells you that you’re crying.

It was a nightmare, a terrible nightmare, probably one of the worst you had in years, but you were beginning to forget it, and for that you were grateful. You’re afraid, so damn afraid and miserable, you just want it to be gone.

Shuddering under your blanket you become aware of the darkness beyond your bed. It’s still late, maybe early morning. Outside your snow framed window the street is silent and all that there exists by way of sound is the ricochet of your heart in your ears. The darkness is suddenly stifling, and you dare to reach for your phone beside your head.

The light makes you wince, but it doesn’t chase away the fear quickly enough. It’s fading at the edges, leaving an uncomfortable itch behind, one that can’t be solved by getting up and walking around. No, you need to talk to someone, anyone that’s still up.

You scroll through your address book and see the names, but you don’t know who to pick. BP might be asleep or still at practice, either way you don’t want to risk bothering him, no matter how much his grumbling would be a comfort right now. The hour is obscene, so there was no way you could text Toriel, Undyne, or Alphys-- you just don’t know them well enough to warrant that. Your brother’s number is still there, but you force yourself away from it: you would find no comfort there.

Then you receive a text from G.

It takes you a moment to process that this has just happened, and that you aren’t just looking at an old notification somehow, but you read it almost greedily, your heavy framed eyes still acclimating to the brightness of the screen.

(4:40) Bone Man

_what do u call an alien with three eyes?_

(4:41) xxx-xxxx

_I dunno, what do you call an alien with three eyes_

(4:42) Bone Man

_An aliiien_

(4:43) xxx-xxx

_That’s so bad!_

But of course you’re laughing.

(4:44) Bone Man

_why didnt the dog star laugh at the joke?_

(4:45) xxx-xxxx

_Because I’m too Sirius_

(4:46) Bone Man

_was i that obvious?_

(4:47) xxx-xxxx

_I can see right through you, skele-man_

_plus I’ve kind of heard that one before_

(4:47) Bone Man

_youve got me_

A few minutes pass where you lay in bed, wondering if the conversation is over, but with nothing else to go on. You want to keep talking, to stave off the night for a little longer, and you’re definitively interested in why he’s up so late anyways. You had heard Alphys say that he didn’t sleep often, and he looked the part at times, but the timing was too perfect. 

 _Maybe it’s…_ No, you won’t let you consider that it’s somehow your Soul’s doing, even if it’s all you can come up with.

G doesn’t say anything right away, and you begin to think that he’s gone to bed, or back to work, or whatever he may be up to, but then your phone pings again.

(4:55) Bone Man

_knock, knock_

Back to knock, knock jokes? You ‘re definitely game.

(4:55) xxx-xxxx

_Who’s there?_

(4:56) Bone Man

_youll call_

You brow furrows at this. Is he…?

(4:57) xxx-xxxx

_You’ll call who?_

(4:58) Bone Man

_Ill call you, if you dont mind_

He’ll call you? Right now? Later? Your mouth runs dry at the idea, but you can’t deny that you’re excited. At least he can’t smell your bad breath through the phone, and it had been two nights since your hang out at Grillby’s. You had texted each other since then a few times, but it wasn’t the same as hearing his voice in your ear.

(5:03) Bone Man

_its cool if you dont want to_

_its late_

(5:04) xxx-xxxx

_No, it’s okay._

A few seconds tick by and then your phone screen is replaced with an old style telephone icon, jangling on its holder. You breathe in, out, and swipe the screen.

“…G?”

You hear someone breathe on the other end, quiet and barely there. “ _siri.”_ His voice is thick with exhaustion, and that makes it somehow rougher then normal, causing a shiver in your heart and a blush to bloom across your skin. You could fall in love with that voice.

“Still awake?” Stupid question, and you laugh quietly in self-deprecation for it, but the noise he makes is something similar, and you feel better for it.

“ _yeah…s’it’s late, i’m sorry.”_

“No, no, I said it was okay,” you quickly reassure him, readjusting your blankets to where they’re closer towards your neck, but you’re still antsy under the covers, just wanting to move. “Why are you still awake?”

“couldnt sleep,” he pauses, you hear him moving, and his voice deepens slightly, as if he’s rolled onto his chest. Was that possible without vocal cords? You didn’t know. “…bad dream.”

It’s the same as it is for you. He had a nightmare, just as you had, and now you’re both awake at the same time, talking on the phone. It’s almost fairy tale, but you want to chase away the discomfort laced in his words. As if he’s blaming himself for this something he can’t control. ”you?”

“Me too, if you would believe it,” you say, and the impressions of the images are still under your skin, but the fear has dampened greatly since you’ve started talking to him, the darkness fuller with what was there actually in your room, not with what you were afraid could be.

G doesn’t say anything for a moment, but when he does it’s something unexpected: “tell me a story?”

Your eyes try to find something to cling to in the shadows of your bedroom ceiling. A car passes outside, their front lights barely pushing back the night, and it’s gone. He couldn’t possibly know.

“Once upon a time, there were two children. One was a monster, and the other was human.”

G chuckles and you blush again. Had he been kidding?

“i know this one.”

Toriel had been the same, you recall. How many people Underground had read you and your brother’s book? It was an amazing thought, thinking that even one monster had picked it up prior to the barrier falling, let alone that there was one who knew it right away from just the two opening lines. And G of all people? G had read your writing, even before you had ever met? It was just like before, when he had been outside your apartment building with BP. And how often did the two of you pass each other on the street while living in the same city since the monsters had come to the surface? How often did he just wonder, as you often did, what was his other half doing out there at the exact moment he was?

And now you were together, speaking with one another, existing closer than ever before, and there was so much time to make up for. 

“I have another one.” G says nothing, only waits. “Once upon a time, there was a child, and the person they loved most in the world: their older brother.” You hear his breath hitch on the other end, but you go on: “They lived in a small house with their mother and father; a woman with hair and eyes like flax, and a man who spoke most often when his wife was there beside him. “

You don’t know why of all things this is what you had decided to tell him. Maybe it was the nightmare you had, something about it bringing your once-family to mind, or maybe it was your desire to tell him more about yourself. Maybe it was the hour, and how senseless it made your line of thinking, but your Soul told you to go on, and once you had started you found it hard to stop.

“The little family was poor, but they had each other, and that was all that mattered. Until one day the mother began to fade.

“It was subtle at first, and you could never tell, for how she smiled never waned, even when her health began to. But one day her body could not hold onto her Soul any longer and it drifted away.

“Distraught, the father could not take the loss of his love, and his Soul cracked under the strain, leaving the then even older brother to take care of his sibling. When most would buckle under the responsibility, the brother gathered himself and what they had left together, and did what he could. While the youngest went to school during the day, he worked, and when the other slept at night, he studied when he had the time. The sibling's brother had their father’s quiet, stern nature, but he also had their mother’s warm heart, and nothing in his Soul would ever choose to give up on his decision.

“But he was still young, and his sibling knew him well to tell that he was tired, so one day they told him that they didn’t mind if he gave them away, although it hurt then to say such a thing. But he refused, as they knew he would, so they asked him how, despite everything, he kept trying.

“”I may not always be happy, or unhappy. But as long as I have you, I am content.”

“Years passed, they both grew, and at last came the time that the youngest would leave home for their schooling, and their brother could stay behind, and look after himself. Even after the departure, they spoke every day, through letters or calls, and although the brother said very few words, their sibling knew he meant everyone he said. But they were concerned, worried that their brother was not looking after himself as they hoped he would: after so much time spent looking after them, did he know how?

“Until one day, he fell in love.

“The other sibling could tell right away, because although the brother did not speak very much more, when it was it was about a certain someone. They were kind and they were smart and they had hair and eyes like flax the brother would say, and their sibling tried not to laugh at the comparison: they were simply glad that he finally found his Mate.

“But his Mate was not alone: they were with another, a terrible person who would not let them leave and their brother tried every way of making it so. His Mate told him it was fine, that they were happy that they had the brother in some way at least.

“And then there came a time when the person who held his love in a cage of anguish and pain broke them--they broke his Soul Mate, they broke them in a way that it made sure that it would be even harder for them to leave, to the point of impossibility.

“The brother was too angry to hold back any longer, and he lashed out. The brother was strong, stronger then that terrible person could have ever anticipated, and it was the brother’s Soul that made him stronger. A Soul so filled with love and compassion for who he so dearly wanted to to protect that it made him powerful.

"In the end that terrible person crumbled to the brother’s feet, their life in his hands, and at his mercy. But he didn’t take it. He walked away, because he knew that despite his Soul Mate, and his anger, to be someone that could snuff out the light of a person was not someone he was nor would ever be.

“But that person was different, and when the brother turned his back, they struck.

“The brother died. Despite everything all it took was one, final blow, and he was gone. But in the act of taking the brother's life, that terrible person condemned themselves forever. 

"The Soul Mate was finally free. But at what cost? The brother was gone, and thus his love’s heart was broken, and so to was the heart of the sibling that the brother had sought to protect, as well, for so long. For the first and last time, those who he loved most in the world met beside his grace, and although the sibling hurt so very, very much, when the brother’s Mate asked if they would be okay, of all people, they replied that they would. The Soul Mate asked why, wanting anything to cling to that would help, and the sibling replied:

“”Because I was proud of my brother. He loved me, and did everything he could to support me, and I never showed him how much that meant. Even when times were the hardest he was there, and I’ll always be grateful for that.

“”Even though he’s dead, I will be okay. Because although I may not be happy, and I do not know if one day that will change, for his sake and everything he did, I will be at least be content.””

The line is quiet but you knew that he was still there, because you could hear a soft breathing mingling with your own. In your bathroom the faucet leaked, the drip, drip, drip something like the counting of sheep, and you find that your eye lids have again grown heavy.

“thank you,” is all that is said from your friend, and it is better than any apology or condolence anyone has ever given to you before, because you know that he means it.

 

BP saw your face the next morning and did a double-take.

“BP…”

It was a snort first, and then he began to cackle, too loudly for you to be convinced that he had slept properly the night before, especially once his coffee spills over the rim of his mug and he doesn’t stop.

When you woke up ten minutes prior your face felt numb, and when you lifted your head away from your pillow, you saw the culprit lying face open, reading that your call was still gathering hours and it had reached three. You know that you hadn’t talked to G for that long, but couldn’t recall when you fell asleep exactly.

You had picked it up carefully from your pillow and placed it to your ear, wondering why G hadn’t ended the call himself, but he answered the question unintentionally himself when he breathed into the receiver, once, twice, three times, slow and deep. He was still asleep.

With the image of him lying face down in bed in your head you snapped your phone closed, heading for your bathroom and convinced that you had malfunctioning blood vessels in your cheeks with how often you blushed.

What greeted you in the mirror was an impression of your phone’s key pad set firmly into your face.

“You’re lucky you get off early,” BP comments after he at last calms down, zipping up his coat and following you out your apartment door. He has his oawn day job to attend to before his practice session at a small theater in town that had mostly gone unused until his acting ground commandeered it, save for school plays and when the local soup-kitchen needed the space with how often their own building’s pipes tended to burst. You have yet to go to the place, but BP has complained about the seats smelling like tomatoes on and off for days since you moved into together. His actual money making job was at an Italian restaurant though, the rehearsals being completely self-funded until revenue for their upcoming play was to be held. “I’m going to smell like pasta all day.”

You hum at the thought, trying to conjure the smell of a nicely baked tomato basil pasta, but all you nose inhales is the cold of the winter. “Sounds wonderful.”

“ _Peh_.” He spat, “Lemme give you a ride.”

You perk up at that, all willing to not have to potentially be late for work, and avoid public transit at the same time: the last time you had ridden the bus you had been reading an old YA novel, and the passenger next to you had asked you if you were reading it to make yourself feel superior in some way. “Are you sure, BP?”

“’Course I’m sure, bud,” he smirks, his sharp canines flashing in mischief. “You still have to tell me about your little date night with mister _edge-head_.” You wrinkle your face at the tone he used, his mouth upturned comically as if display disgust.

“Edge-head?” G was kind of edgy you suppose, but that doesn’t seem like a compliment from BP.

“Yeah,” he jabs at the button for the crosswalk irritably, the parking lot for another tenement building with his car in it on the other side of the street. “I can’t decide if he was more tolerable before or after he cracked his skull open,” here BP trails off, his irritation giving away to something more somber. The memory of Undyne and Alphys sitting in the sushi restaurant with the same downcast eyes comes to you, and you stay quiet as the pair of you make it across the street.

BP has to kick at his door to open it up, and you wiggle the handle of yours a time or two until it does the same. The doors aren’t even locked, but god speed to anyone who actually _wants_ to take BP’s ride. When you slide in and sit down, you can feel the leather edges of the hole in the cushion under your butt. There’s no radio to speak of, of course, and BP hates this fact. _“Gives me too much time to think, you know?”_

It takes a few tries, but he gets the car moving, and with hardly a scratch, albeit a very noisy one, against the asphalt of the road as the car drives through a dip between it and the lot, BP makes it into morning traffic.

“So, you have any more plans with the guy tonight. Offer’s still open?”

“…how did MK read their notes, did that work out?”

“We grabbed a prop from the back, something used as a bush or corpse or something in another play years ago?”

“How do you mistake those two?”

“There was something green on it. I don’t know how you humans work when you die. Plans, Jones?”

“Undyne and Alphys actually invited me over,” you reply, staring out your passenger window so you don’t have to see the bug eyed look on his face.

“Are you serious? First Undyne saves your life and then the former friggin’ royal scientist and the ex-head of the guard are inviting you over for _tea_? I flipped burgers for those assholes!”

This makes you laugh, BP’s grumpiness actually lifting your mood. It was just so _him_.

“Is bone-guy going to be there?”

 _Unfortunately, no_ , you think sullenly. “He has work, I think? I didn’t want to invite him, I mean, we’re just watching anime-.”

“Does fish-face still think that stuff is human history or something-?”

“Wait, what?”

“Boy, do I have something to tell _you_ , bud.”

The remainder of the ride is filled with BP basically telling you that Undyne had run around like a warrior queen with the firm belief that anime, as in sword swinging, bug-eyed girl squealing anime was one hundred percent canon with human history. So enraptured with complaining about “how ridiculous” this is, he seems to completely forget about grilling you on G, but you aren’t going to stop him. BP had at least 19 plus years of done with everything to work off, so you gave him what time he needed to vent when you could.

Your mood wilts when he pulls up beside your café job and drops you off, BP’s car skidding away as you begin your day with a sigh.

It’s monotonous and boring, working in the back of the kitchen of the café, but ignoring the clock helps. You entirely expect your day to go along as normal with no interruptions until the boss himself calls you back to his office.

Hiding your frown of distaste, you follow his holler to his office. It’s bigger then the back storage, with plenty of leg room even with its desk, small book shelf, filing cabinets, and the man himself, a big, balding guy in his late fifties.

“Yes, mister Grose?”

“Sidle up here, Jones, I’ve got some questions I need answered.” He’s wearing that ever present grin of his, which reeks of sleazy ingenuity. What could he possibly ask you, the dish washer he had barely traded a sentence with since hiring them? “I’ve heard an unfortunate rumor that you’ve been in the presence of _monster-kind_ ,” he says these last two words with such disdain you can feel yourself physically tense, your usual passive demeanor threatening to crack. “Now, I know you’re a good kid. Not a day missed since you started three months ago-“ (you had been working there a lot longer than three months, but okay)  “-and I know you’ve got a bright future ahead of you-“ (why did you feel like you were in front of your high school principal all of a sudden?) “-which is why I am deeply concerned that you would _associate_ with such animals.”

You chin lifts higher with a jerk, your posture straightens. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Jones. I’ve seen the way that they play out those _creatures_ on television, and how you young folk are so _keen_ on the idea of letting them into our society.”

“Letting them in? Sir, they deserve to be here as much as anyone-,” you start to say, a hardness to it that you haven’t heard some time.

“Now, now. That’s the kinda thing I’m talking about,” he shakes his head as if he’s heard something inane as he cuts you off: he’s _interrupting_ you now? “I know you’re generation gets their rocks off on playing pretty with these, these _whatever,_ but there’s a big difference between human beings and a bunch of demons talking about magic, and wanting to _play house_ around _children_ -.”

A surge of disgust rolls in your stomach at what he’s obviously implying and just like that something in you snaps with a growl. “Okay, no, no, I’m done,” you cut off his tangent mid-stride to fumble with your apron’s strings, Grose’s face erupting into red and his mouth dropping open, as if he’s taking your undressing _entirely_ the wrong way.

“I quit. I quit, and I’m leaving, and I am so done with listening to your speciesest , wa-wanna be-“ your apron won’t come entirely untied, so you’re forced to pull it over your head, causing your work cap to fall off in the process, “-one of those _creatures_ is my Soul Mate, and he is a hundred times, no, a _thousand_ times better at being a decent fuck-fucking person then you are! _And I would love to play house with him!_ I would marry his ass, spawn his demon children, and die happy with him while you sit at home, _rotting_ , _alone_ because you’re too much of an asshole for anyone to want to stay for longer than a few minutes!” With that you try your best to march out of his office, passing one of the baristas in the back as you go. They’re wide eyed and you realize that they’ve probably heard everything, but you really couldn’t care. You just want out of the damned place and you never want to go back. You have to remind yourself to grab your jacket on the way out, but when you leave through the front doors the cold wind hits your red face with a startle, making you process what you had just done. For a moment you think about what had just went down and giggle, the noise you make just on the edge of sounding insane.

You had just _yelled_ at a man a quit your _job_. Sure, he deserved it, but what the hell were you going to tell BP? At least you were finally free of the man--how you had managed to deal with such bigotry for so long was only due to your meager pay checks, but even that had been pushing it. You were free, a dishwasher no longer with no plans ahead of you for even the next few hours.

“Ah, jeez,” you mumble, and laugh quietly in self-deprecation. Now what were you going to do? Now, _hell_ , later? You couldn’t exactly spawn anything without a job, and you have the rest of the day clear until you’re due for showing up to hang out with Alphys and Undyne…

Standing in front of the café, you scooch out of the way for an incoming customer that glances at you strangely, and you decide to take it one step at a time. First, home to change. From there, well, you would just have to see.

 

“ _You did what?!”_

“I…I yelled at him, I think maybe the others heard,” you wince at the memory, not liking this conversation at all.

You had originally called up BP during his lunch break to let him know about the news, starting with your call into the office and ending with you storming out shortly after. When BP asks for details you begrudgingly concede, admittedly smiling a bit at the marriage bit, so amused were you didn’t even blush at the idea that you would ever marry G, let alone have kids in any shape or form.

Still you feel terrible the entire time telling him, expecting BP to explode on the other end about what you were going to do about bills, but when he does explode, it’s into something unexpected.

You flinch and hold the phone away from your head, your bed creaking underneath you as you sit in your bedroom belaying the news. As soon as the call is done, you had planned on dunking under your blankets and hiding for as long as you could until you had to resurface for your scheduled hang out, but BP’s howling laughter on the other end of the line put your plans on a stand still.

 _“J-Jones, Jones marry me. Run-runaway to the hills with me and, and live with Fred and me and just continue to fill my life with how wonderful you are,”_ he wheezed between chuckles, and your mood significantly lightened to the point that you almost felt dizzy from it. He seriously wasn’t mad? “ _Don’t you dare do that, Jones.”_

“Do what? Marry you?”

“ _I know you by now, bud. We’ll use whatever we get from the show to help out with bills. It’s practically already sold out. In the meantime, keep being awesome. Shit, I wish I had se-seen his **face**_.”

BP’s line cuts off without so much as a goodbye, but it doesn’t bother you, too shell-shocked are you by what just happened. Well, that worked out much better then you had expected.

You’re about to toss your phone aside on your bed when it’s light blinks green, a notification from Undyne popping up on the still open screen.

(2:30) Royal Guardsman Undyne

_Change of plans dork, Tori has a teacher’s conference. we’re taking our little party to her place_

Toriel’s house? You suspect that it’s to watch Flowey and Frisk, but it didn’t seem in character for Toriel to ask for help on such short notice.

(2:31) Doctor Alphys

 _I’m so sorry, Sirius! Do you mind if we watch your show at the queen’s instead? I meant to ask Undyne to tell you Saturday, but she forgot._ ヾ(ﾟДﾟ;ヾ)

You giggle at Alphys’ emoticon and the impeccable timing of the two text messages. They were really so good together.

(2:32) xxx-xxxx

_I don’t mind at all! I’m already off work, too. I’ll be ready as soon as you guys are!_

You hesitate before adding a smiley of your own to your text, then send it to both of them at once. The response is almost immediate.

(2:33) Royal Guardsman Undyne

_What's with that face? you excited to see us? You dork!_

Undyne’s response makes you laugh again, and you find yourself remarkably in a good mood. Having friends like them just made everything so much easier-.

 _Friends?_ Was that what they were to you? Considering the lunch date, how Undyne had helped you, your later plans with them, and how they were making you feel so much better now? Yeah, that’s what it felt like. You wouldn’t rush in and insist on calling them that out loud, but tentatively….you had begun to warm up to the idea that BP wasn’t the only person in the world that maybe didn’t mind your presence.

“Lulu,” you sigh under your breath towards your brother’s picture frame where it sat on your beside table. “I’m finally getting a life, I think. What am I supposed to do with myself?”

His image said nothing in response, but if he were there, you knew he’d say something along the lines on how talking to yourself was a sign of an unhinged mind. Always the loving brother.

 

“Sirius!” Toriel is on you as soon as her door opens, her great arms circling your shoulders and embracing you in a hug full of affection. “I’m so sorry that you had to work for such a horrible man,” she says, answering your asked question about the worry in her voice, and she backs off, but not without leaving her hands still on your arms. “When I heard that you stood up to that absolute terror for all of monster-kind, I was so proud!”

“Who said I stood up to him,” you ask in growing bewilderment. Sure, you had, but she was making it seem like you had faced off against some horrible dictator, not your evangelical ex-boss with a comb-over.

“Frisk! Undyne told them, and they told me everything,” she explains, pulling you inside and closing the door behind the two of you. She offers to take your coat and you let her do so with your thanks, the jacket leaving your shoulders and joining one much smaller one plus one much, much larger one on her rack. You start to follow her into the dining area, listening to with amusement as she remarks on “the nerve of some people” until someone catches your eye in his pot on the table.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Flowey doesn’t even bother to sneer, blatantly frowning in his distaste for your presence, but the affect is ruined by the wooden spoon he has wrapped in one leaf. A great glass bowl sits before him on the table cloth, its inner walls smeared with the remnants some kind of batter, and the spoon is no different.

“I’m helping watch Frisk,” you say, and just as you do so a thud of steps comes toppling down the stairs in the foyer. The kid in question darts over to you, latching onto your leg and looking up with a beaming grin. You can’t the smile it evokes even if you wanted to. “Hello, Frisk!”

Frisk giggles into the material of your jeans, making Flowey scoff, but he does nothing to explain what Frisk may or may not have said. Rather than wait on the flower, Frisk grabs your hand, leading you into the kitchen where Toriel is placing a lid on a clear baking dish. Something yellow presses against its edges from inside, and the citrus scent of lemon fills the air.

“You’ll have to wait until after you have dinner to eat the extras, sweetie,” Toriel lightly scolds them, and Frisk pulls on your pants leg. “Sirius wants one, do they? Well, they're no different, child. Sirius knows better than to eat dessert before dinner,” Toriel says, and sends you a wink, making Frisk huff from beside you. You shrug and bite back a smile when they sigh up in your direction: using you to get what they wanted was not going to work on Toriel.

There’s a knock on the front door in the other room, and then it opens, Undyne’s familiar voice calling out: “We’re here, loser!”

Frisk inaudibly gasps from beside you, springing from your side and running for the door in time to get swept up in Undyne’s strong arms. Undyne holds them up above her head, as delighted as Frisk is with every one of her pointy teeth shining. “How’s my favorite little fighter!”

Alphys appears at her side in the middle of this, removing her scarf and looking up at her girlfriend with obvious fondness. When Undyne squeeze Frisk for a hug, they wave down at the yellow monster, who waves back animatedly, her usual apprehension nowhere in sight. Huh, maybe Frisk just had that effect on people. 

“Hi-hi, Sirius,” she squeaks to you, a little nervous now, and you return the greeting. “Hi, doctor Alphys.”

Undyne makes a gagging noise, Frisk tucked up on her shoulder and looking entirely comfortable with their position, “What’s with all that formality, crap? Lighten up!”

“B-but, I think it’s ki-kind of cool,” Alphys blushes, twiddling her fingers. “Li-like a action movie, wh-where the hero and their scientist consultant a-are always really formal! But! But they really, really respect each other-.” She stops here, as if suddenly thinking that she’s getting ahead of herself, but you nod at what she’s said.

“Y-yeah,” you say, embarrassed by how similar your line of thinking had been, although you hardly felt like the hero type. Alphys looks happier, but Undyne just shrugs.

“Eh, whatever, let’s get on some ‘toons!” Reaching up and tucking Frisk beneath one arm like a sack of flour, who giggles silently at the treatment.

“You never change, do you?” You’d forgotten that Flowey was on the table, but his attention is focused on Alphys. The doctor jolts, her eyes going wide. Apparently she has just noticed the flower, and you’re worried by how uncomfortable she obviously is as she turns and follows her girlfriend.

Toriel enters the room with her departure holding her baking dish, and the stern set of her mouth makes you feel like you could be the one in trouble, even if you hadn’t done anything. “Flowey.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the flower grumbles, but falls silent, and you’ve felt like you’ve missed something. Was there something between him and the scientist? Toriel brightens when she turns away from the flower, “Could you hold this for me, dear?” You take the baking dish from her with a nod, a pair of oven mitts between you and the heat that you can feel radiating off of it.

You trail the mother into her foyer, where she begins dressing herself up for the cold outside. From the small room you can see Undyne in Toriel’s chair, which is turned towards a new-looking flat screen television that hangs above the fireplace. “I bought the television just for the occasion. I’ve never had one of my own, but humankind is so amazing with what they can do!” She leans in, speaking almost conspiratorially with what she says next. “Did you know it has over one thousand channels? Where would I even find the time?” It’s hard not to be happy about her enthusiasm. She leaves shortly after, Frisk bolting into the room to smother their mother in a hug as best as they can manage, and Toriel takes her dish from you after, wishing all of you a goodnight that Undyne and Alphys both return in their own ways.

Frisk pulls you into the room and positions you on the couch you had sat on the last time you were there, hopping beside you. The television is already on, Alphys standing next to a shelving unit beside the fire place where a cable box waits alongside a DVD and VHS tape combo unit that you have to raise an eyebrow at: you hadn’t seen a VHS anything in years.  

“Me-Mettaton is supposed to be having an interview tonight,” Alphys says, already changing from whatever had been playing on Cartoon Network with a talking, blue cat to another channel. On screen the host is talking to someone in the arm chair next to him, a someone that literally shines under the lights of the set. Even if you didn’t already previously know about Mettaton’s popularity from online, you can tell that the sentient robot is entirely stealing the show out from under their feet.

“ _Blech_ , who needs that glorified toaster,” Undyne remarks, earning a reprimanding frown from her girlfriend.

“U-Undyne, he’s trying as ha-hard as the rest of us!”

“Like he needs to try at anything,” Undyne mutters, frowning when Mettaton beguiles the audience with a wink and they eat it up. “He wouldn’t be anywhere if it weren’t for that body you made him.”

This hits you like a truck, your head whipping in Alphys direction before she can argue back with Undyne. “You-you made Mettaton?” She had told you about her robotics, gene-splicing, and biochemistry work when you talked at the sushi place, but only very briefly, and she looked the same at Toriel’s as she did in the restaurant, totally self-conscious and shrugging it off like it was nothing at all.

“It-it was what got the king’s attention, before I be-became the royal scientist,” she says, distracting herself with turning on the DVD player rather than look at you. “It’s nothing, really.”

“Alphys that’s so cool!”

Alphys whips her head in your direction, and just like that her scales go from yellow to red, the scientist cupping her hands against her cheeks and pulling her tail closer to her in total abashment. “N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-o-!”

Undyne cackles from her seat and jumps out of it, falling to her knees on the floor and lifting her girlfriend into a bone crushing hug. “Haha! You’re so adorable when you’re flustered!”

You’d brought your own copy of the DVD box set of the anime you had recommended Alphys try, _FullMetal Alchemist_ , an old favorite that you had seen a dozen times growing up, but as you begin to hand her the first disc to pop in a halting thought comes to mind. You were watching Frisk for the night, so maybe your choice wasn’t at all a good idea. When you go to ask them if it’s okay for them to watch something so violent, Undyne just laughs.

“They’ve seen more than enough action to care about that stuff, punk!” You don’t know what she means by this, because Toriel doesn’t seem like the type to let Frisk watch anything of the sort, but you don’t argue about it when Frisk shoots you a thumbs up.

You sit down beside Frisk again, the lights are turned off, and Alphys is pulled into her girlfriends lap to watch the show. When the first episode begins, you find yourself smiling through all of the familiar scenes, but you’re also anxious about how Undyne and Alphys are taking it. Your relief is palpable when Alphys gasps in glee about recognizing some of the voice work so early, and Undyne yells encouragements at the main star with actual tears in her eyes when he’s forced to do something drastic, potentially risking his life for his brothers. There's just as much blood and gore as you remember, but when you look at Frisk they seem entirely unaffected, their mouth wide as they sit on the edge of their seat, hoping against hope that the brothers will be okay.

Everything is going wonderfully, and before the first episode ends the pizza delivery guy knocks at the front door. You get up to get it, letting everyone continue watching without interruption, but Undyne reaches out and stops you along the way. “It’s on me, punk,” she says with a wink, or a blink maybe, handing you a crumpled hand of cash.

There are three pizzas: one anchovy and pepperoni, one spinach with sun tomatoes, and a double cheese. The girls don’t remove themselves form their seats until the first episode ends, but when they do it’s with gusto,  Undyne chattering about how kick ass the lead is already despite his age, and Alphys saying how adorable his younger brother was.

The night goes smoothly from there for the next two episodes, and the coffee table is quickly littered neatly with used plates, cups, and half-empty soda bottles (neatly because no one wanted to cause an actual mess for their host to deal with; Undyne even insisted on using Toriel’s wooden coasters with their flower-pressed designs).    

The next episode is just beginning when someone else knocks at the front door, and Undyne asks you to grab it, the smile she wears making you think she knows something you don’t. You do what she asks without commenting on that, feeling jittery. Maybe Toriel had forgotten her key and you’d accidentally locked the door after grabbing the pizzas?

The door is unlocked though, and you feel nervous, a fluttering feeling in your chest that gives him away even before you open the door.

“G?” Undyne’s grin makes sense now, and you don’t know if you want to be happy or embarrassed about it, so you aim for both. “I didn’t know you were coming,” you say, stepping back and beginning to close the door behind him so he can move out of the cold, but then a white blur out from the outside, a ball of fluff running into your legs at full doggy speed: A.D.!

“the fish lady invited me to the party,” G is saying, watching you as you bend down to greet the familiar white dog’s enthusiasm with some of your own. “he showed up along the way.”

“I-is he not yours,” you ask, standing up when the dog stops licking your cheek to snuffle at your shoes.

“nah, a.d. goes where he wants,” G says, but he’s watching you, and you’re resisting the urge not to grin just because he’s there. A pounding of feet from the second floor takes you away from the moment, and you catch Frisk coming back from their bathroom break just as they hit mid-way down the stairs, and then launches themselves into the air. Fear doesn’t even have time to lodge itself in your throat before G is there, catching Frisk mid-fall with both hands, and all the while Frisk’s face splitting smile doesn’t waver.

“hey, kiddo!” G chuckles, patting Frisk’s back with one hand as the kid wraps their arms around his throat in a grip that would suffocate anyone else. Frisk backs off, their face animated and lively even as you can’t pick up on their half of the conversation. “heck, yeah, i’ll take some pizza. heh, i dunno, but i’m happy to see siri.”  G turns his skull towards you with a wink, and a blush erupts on your face. Meanwhile Frisk’s smile has changed from purely innocent to something devious. What were they planning?

“alph told me you stuck it to some scum bag today.”

“Oh, um, just my boss. He was kind of a jerk,” you frown at the memory of the man. Now that a few hours had passed, you were more irritated by what had happened then anything, and for him to imply that monsters were doing some kind of harm for just trying to live normal lives really rubbed you the wrong way. “…a speciest, self-righteous slimy jerk.”

Frisk and G share the same nefarious grin at your word choice as G glances between the two of you, “the boss said you admitted you planned on shaking up with a monster, just to make him wiggle in his pants,” G says this like more like a gossiping old biddy with a sweet piece of information then a sentient skeleton wearing leather and Frisk is just giggling in outright delight. But you’re just barely surprising a million shades of red, grateful that BP hadn’t let it slip just who you’d want to _shack up with_.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” you laugh lightly, stiffening when Frisk sends you a wink G doesn’t seem to notice: had…BP…kept that under wraps?

A.D. is the one to lead the way into the living room where you sit down, the dog jumping onto the far end with Frisk joining them after G sits at your right, not leaving any sort of buffer between you and the skele-man, which, again, you’re both happy and embarrassed about. Even when he grabs a slice of pizza, it’s from your pick, G picking off one of the tomatoes and popping it into his mouth. Rather than watch him eat and wonder how that worked exactly like some kind of weirdo, you look up at the TV, the scene playing instantly catching your attention.

The episode is approaching the part that has been known to be one of the earliest heavy hitting moments in the series, where a girl and her dog are sacrificed by the girl’s father in a science experiment to prove to his higher ups in the military that his research is still worth being funded. The two leads enter the family’s mansion on a rainy day, the halls large and ominous. When they make it to the basement, the eldest brother catches the scientist in his lab, who steps aside to reveal the results of his latest work.

It’s here that you hear a noise from the arm chair, and you look over, hiding your excitement when you see that it’s affecting Alphys. Her hands are on her mouth, and her eyes are wide, giving you the impression that she already knows what’s happened. Undyne is no less affected, her mouth a flat line, but she’s shooting glances between the television and her girlfriend in obvious concern. Your excitement fades somewhat: was this too much? This scene had always broken hearts as far as you knew, but it wouldn’t do for anyone to be legitimately hurt by it. Watching anime was supposed to be fun, after all, not meant to give someone nightmares.

 _“Where have Nina and Alexander gone?”_ The brother is talking, staring down the scientist with a baleful gaze despite being so much shorter, but the father just smirks disturbingly, his glasses flashing in the dim light cast by a nearby candle.

The father and scientist had sacrificed his daughter and pet dog in order to create an intelligent chimera, a fusion of creatures into one new, yet unstable being. Nina and her dog--no, the chimera, are in obvious pain, but the father writes it off as necessary for the sake of progress; a sacrifice for the sake of the whole. 

And the main lead, Edward, can't take this answer: " _Do you really think you can get away with this?! Messing around with someone's life like that?!_ "

" _Someone's life, you say? Ha ha, you would know all about that, wouldn't you?_ "

The scientist goes on to accuse the brother of being no different then himself, and this makes the brother snap, who begins to pummel the life out of the other man. _"I'm not... I'm NOT!"_

The growling of the fused daughter being what stops him in the end, not his younger brother’s cries. A little girl and who dog who plead for the life of the man who made them into what they had become.

You hear another noise from Alphys, and seeing her face again, you know somethings terribly wrong. She jumps out of Undyne’s lap, nearly tumbling to the ground, and Undyne shouts after her, following her out of the room when the smaller monster darts for the foyer.

You aren’t aware that you’ve stood up until the slamming of the second floor bathroom door makes you flinch, and from there you can hear Undyne opening the door again to follow her girlfriend inside.

“Al-Alphys?”

A weight shifts on the couch, and the sound from the television vanishes, the screen going dark. You turn to see dropping the remote onto the coffee table. G has turned it off and Frisk sits on the couch half turned towards the foyer, their mouth still slightly open in a wordless cry. What had just happened?

Frisk jumps off the couch suddenly, moving around the table, stopping a moment on the other side to face G, whose eye sockets you finally notice have gone dark.

“i know kid,” he replies lowly to something Frisk says without words. The kid glances at you and then heads for the foyer, their steps echoing up and a short knock following after. The door upstairs opens, then closes, and you’re left alone with G, your heart thudding painfully in your chest.

Nothing’s being explained. There’s just the silence, punctured by the muffled noise of voices above you. You don’t know why you saw Alphys crying when she left the room, or why G hasn’t said anything about it yet, but with a heavy blackness settling in your gut, you can’t help but think that it’s entirely your fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no. Ohhhh no.  
> fave g art: http:// yoralim.tumblr.com/post/140495742402/smoke-important-edit-gastersans-creation (Gorgeous!)  
> 


	8. Of Opportunities and Explantions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this week was slow, i couldn't wait to update. it's saturday somewhere. i know, cuz i googled it  
> also: titles are hard

“Will…will Alphys be okay?” The three of them are still up on the second floor, leaving you, G, and a snoozing A.D. behind in the silence. G sighs softly, and you tense at the sound. When he turns his head towards you see that his eye has returned, but his mouth is a flat line.

“maybe,” he says, his typical growl laced voice coming off as more tired to you then normal. He places a hand on the cushion next to him where you sat previously and pats it, asking you to sit silently. You comply swiftly, wanting to do or find any means of righting the situation that you could. “there’s not a lot i can say. if you want it all, you’ll have to ask alph about it.”

“ _You’ll have to ask the bonehead about all that.”_

“I…I understand,” you nod regretfully. It was just like with the case of G, and what happened to him in the Underground. If you wanted to know more, you had to ask the source, but that was easier said than done. You could just tell how they reacted--Alphys fleeing from the room, Undyne and Frisk's faces tense with worry as they followed after-- that this was not a sign of something light in nature. _I called them my friends, but I don’t really know anything, do I?_

“you know we all came from the underground, before, and that alph was a scientist for the king?” You nod again quietly, not wanting to interrupt, and G continues. ”people did what they could to deal with the situation, to live with it or change it. alph was in the latter group. she thought she had found a way perhaps to break the barrier, but things…didn’t go as planned. only four people know what she did exactly in her lab, but whatever it was, she’s not proud of it.”

“ _The opportunity was right in front of us, and we took it! We had to, even though we knew it was against the rules!”_ You’d watched that damn episode a thousand times and had always been chilled by the father scientist’s words and his expression while he said them, but what must it have been like for Alphys to hear them instead? Whatever it was that she did, it obviously hurt her, Alphys crying in the bathroom upstairs was proof enough of that.

“siri,” G’s voice stopped your thought process, but you don’t look up from staring down at the hands you have clinched on your knees. “you didn’t know.”

“But, but I could have done something. I could have…it was a stupid thing to choose, something so violent and….” you let out a heavy breath. There was no way you could have known, but there's nothing to stop you from wishing things had worked out differently. But the voice was still there in your head, that damn human curiosity, and it kept asking, _what did she do?_

Your head jostles up when you hear someone pounding their way down the steps of the stairs, and you straighten your back when you see Undyne, not at all ready to receive any lashing you deserve. “C’mon, punk,” she says, striding into the living room. You stand up, unprepared for the headlock she takes you in, and you hear G’s voice as she begins to drag you out: “ **u n d y n e**.”

“Cool your shit, G. We’ve just gotta talk,” she says without further explanation, grabbing both of your jacket and hers from the rack and somehow managing to pull open the door while still hanging onto you. When you get outside, she lets go, and you nearly stumble on the front steps. Undyne continues her stride along the walkway leading away from the house, stopping and tossing you your jacket when she turns around to face you. You pull it on with some reluctance, her one eyed stare boring into you.

“Look, Alph really likes you, and she doesn’t want to leave you in the dark about anything if you’re going to be friends,” Undyne explains, standing before you with both her hands shoved into her jacket pockets. She doesn’t look happy, but she’s not livid with you either, and that mention of the word “friend” gives you some amount of hope for what she’s about to say. “So listen up. If you don’t like what you hear, you can leave, and that’ll be that! Heck, you can leave right now and we can forget this ever happened.” This? As in all of it? Your lunch date together, running into Alphy's at the book store and talking to her at Muffets? The texts and the lingering hope for more to come? She'd let you escape this awkward situation, forget it ever was, but that meant leaving it all behind. You could go back to it just being you and BP, because really how easy would it be to speak to G after snuffing out his friends from you life, and because of a mistake you made that made them vulnerable? And what if BP found out? What would he possibly think of you if you let someone, several someones _down_ like that?

What could possibly stop him from wanting to leave you all alone again?

Your Soul shudders at the very idea, pain trickling through your veins and leaving your teeth gritting behind your lips.

Sure you had just met these people, you barely know them really. But you want to know them. You want to talk to them more, to spend time in their presence, to get to know these monsters that have been so good to you when so many of the humans in your life had let you down. It wasn't just because they were monsters, but from what you could tell, they were _good_ people. And wouldn't spending time with good people make you a better one as well?

The offer is there, hanging in the air with the silence, but you shake your head, slowly at first, and then more firmly.

“I…I like Alphys, and I really do want to know you guys more. If she wants to tell me, I’ll listen.”

Undyne cracks a smile at this, but it quickly vanishes, the tall monster becoming grim again. “We all did stuff down there that we don’t like to talk about. But we did it to help everybody, to get out of that place, to have more _hope_."

Here she pauses, looking down towards the snowy ground in thought, her voice softer as she speaks. "I spent a lot of time with Alphys, and I really liked her, even before I knew for sure that she was my Soul Mate, and I knew right away when we first met that she would never, _ever_ intentionally harm someone.” She slices at the air with one hand with the rise in her words, her teeth flashing. “You see…she had this idea…”

Undyne told you about Alphys experiments. She didn’t go in detail, not just because she wanted to spare Alphys, but also because she “didn’t entirely understand all that science stuff” and honestly neither would you, you think, even if she could tell you.

Once upon a time Alphys had tried to take the Dust of the dead and infuse it with something only typically contained in great quantities within the Human Soul. Alphys called it Determination, and with it she brought the dead back to life.

“See, when monsters die we don’t fall down dead like a big sack of meat, we turn to Dust. Like, actual _Dust_ , because unlike you humans we're made up of magic more then skin and bone. And if our Souls, the source and all that magic, leaves our bodies? Then _poof!_ We're done for!" You blink at her wide eyed expression, just thinking about it. We're Souls and magic proof that immaterial matter did exist, for the the whole of a monster's being to just...disappear like that? Or was there more to it then that? But then, what was Determination exactly for it to be capable of being removed in a laboratory setting?

But Undyne has begun speaking again, not noticing or commenting on the momentary lull in your concentration. "See, Alphys injected the Dust of dead monsters with Determination, and they actually came back, but it didn’t work out how she wanted it.”

Apparently their bodies were unstable, and some of the monsters even fused together, creating a mash up of creatures. It’s here that Alphys’ reaction to the show clicks, and you’re only grateful that she left the room before the next part.

The part where Nina and Alexander, as one being, were "mercifully" torn apart from the inside out in order to escape their suffering.

The part where the main lead cried in agony, because he " _couldn't save one little girl_."

 _This could have been even worse,_ you think with a painful wince.

“Alph had told everyone about bringing the dead back, but she didn’t expect what happened to happen, you know? What was she supposed to say? “Oh, hi I’ve got your folks back but they kind of mushed together or something? They hardly know what they are or why and they may not even _remembe_ _r_ you?”"

Undyne cuts herself off with a sigh and goes on, returning to her voice's previous volume level. "So…she didn’t tell them. Eventually she stopped answering their calls, and until Fri— _that human_ came around, and the barrier fell, no one else knew about it. But now I do, and a few other people do too, and she wants to tell everyone but, well, it’s kind of hard.” She looks both helpless, pissed off, and frustrated at once, kicking at the snow nest to her feet.

“Wait,” you say, Undyne frowning and meeting your eyes again, but you’re too distracted by something you’ve recalled. “So they’re more than one monster at a time? Like, like Endogeny? Is, are they one?”

“How the heck do you know about _them_?” Undyne is clearly irritated, thinking that you’ve maybe pulled a fast one on her or left something serious out, but you hold up your hands, trying to explain.

“My roommate, BP. He, he mentioned working with them at the theater? It was a while ago, but he mentioned Endogeny. He said they were going to be in the play he has coming up.” The night BP had told you it had baffled you. You thought that maybe he meant that the monster had multiple personalities until he explained that they were in fact several monsters combined. At the time you hadn’t let it confuse you, because magic and monsters were apparently real so why not? “He told me that Endrogeny was playing as a group of fairies, and that their family was going to take time off of work to see them." BP had mentioned that unlike Endrogeny, the rest of their family were "individual people", and you had to wonder if any of those people were the dogs at the Grillby's. But Endrogeny had family, they had a job in theater in a play that's seating is booked solid. That had to mean something. "So are the others okay, like Endrogeny?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Undyne says, sounding a little confused now, but then her tone changes to insistency. “Reaper Bird works at a Bug Zoo upstate. Lemon Bread I think has a singing career, or something? They’re all doing something, Alphie…she always keeps track of them, to make sure they’re okay.” Her voice softens towards the end, a fondness in the way she speaks showing how obviously proud she is of her girlfriend, but that only further proves your point.

“Then, then it’s okay,” you say, and her eyes snap to you. “What, what Alphys did, she did it to help all of you guys, right? And, and she was actually able to bring back people who that had _died_? And they’re actually happy, and they get to see their families again?” At this point you're in awe at the very idea. Nobody can just _do_ that? But Alphys did. Alphys brought the dead back to life. Sure in a different way then she had hoped, but this was big! Really big! Just when you thought that doctor Alphys was astounding enough for creating Mettaton's body _, this_ was pulled out of a hat for you to see!

“Yeah! Some of them thought it was weird at first, but no one hated her for it, not as far as I could tell,” Undyne seems to be catching onto what you’re saying, and draws closer to where you stand in front of the small porch.

“Things could have gone worse, but, but that doesn’t change the fact they that they didn’t. As long as no one was hurt, and Alphys is, is sorry for whatever anguish she may have somehow caused, like honestly concerned about it and working to make it better, that, that matters! Alphys is not a terrible person, she might even be better than most. In fact, I think she _is_ better than most people!”

Undyne doesn’t say anything at first. But then her troubled composure breaks, her shoulders sagging and a laugh escaping. It’s like a switch has been flipped, one moment she’s dark and gloomy, so very eager to prove to you how wonderful her girlfriend is, and the next she’s all smiles. You don't know what's going on at first, but when she takes her lit up phone out of her pocket and lifts it to her ear, you squint.

“You here that, Alph? Everything’s going to be okay.”

“W-wait, she was…she was listening the whole time?” Was life being _serious_ right now?

“Yup,” Undyne chirps with a snicker.

A weight just rolls off your back, and your bones sag in sudden defeat so much so that you can’t even muster up the energy to be shocked or embarrassed about it.

She heard _everything_.

 

When you reenter the house it’s still quiet, and Undyne points up the stairs, indicating where to go. You walk up, nerves tingling after that huge... _whatever_ that had been that you did outside. A rant? A speech? Whatever the case by the time you make it to the second floor you're even less sure of yourself, but Undyne leads the way.

You don’t turn into the bathroom, which is dark and empty, but go to Frisk’s room instead. A lamp is turned on on one of their bookshelves, and Frisk them self is sitting on the bed next to Alphys, the short yellow monster raising her head as you walk in.

“H-hey, Alphys,” you try to say, not knowing where to go from there. Whatever confidence you had felt outside was conveniently lacking right then.

“Do, do you really think I’m a good person?”

Your eye brows raise, your breath caught in your throat until you let it out. She just sounds so…hopeful, and you find that the gusto is maybe coming back, your need to placate her worries too great for your own awkwardness to ruin it. “Alphys, you created Mettaton. You gave him a chance at, at so much. Endogeny is the same, they all are. They get to live longer and be with their friends and family. _You_ did that. Not only is that just really, really so much more than anyone else can do but, but it’s amazing! Just like I said downstairs." Your'e surer and surer about what you’re saying as you go on, and with Alphys watching with her eyes shining in her head, you find that you don't want to stop. You just want her to hear you, to _understand. “_ You’re nothing like that girl's father. You would _never_ do such a thing if it meant hurting someone in the process. You only ever tried to help, to make things better, and that, that makes you so very, _very_ good.”

Alphys breaks out a sob, and you think that maybe you’ve said something entirely wrong, backing off slightly. But then she jumps off the bed, and she runs for you, wrapping her arms around your waist and pressing her face into your stomach, a wetness spreading against the material as she cries. You hesitate for only a moment before you reach down and dislodge her hold, startling the monster until you fall to your knees, holding out your arms until she accepts them, wrapping you up in a trembling embrace.

 

You offer Alphys an alternative to FullMetal Alchemist for the next time, but she actually refuses with a shake of her head.

"I, I don't want to let what I did g-get in the way of my enjoying myself," she says, glancing up to her girlfriend, the motion letting you know that they've probably talked about this before. "It won't help the Amalgamates, or myself, if I avoid the fact."

Undyne can’t possible look prouder then her right then, and drops to her knees to smother Alphys in another hug. All of you are back in the living room, and G is still there much to your relief. When you walked down the stairs and saw him standing in the entry way to the room, he was leaning against the wall, and the soft expression he sent you melted away any thought of saying a coherent word to him.

“everything turn out okay?” Something in the way he holds himself, the way he smiles, makes you think he already knows.

“Yeah, yes, um, I, I think, so,” you stutter. Your nerves are starting to catch up to you, but when Undyne comes up behind you, she startles them away with a slap on the back and a grin that goes on for miles.

When Toriel comes home she must see Alphys’ red rimmed eyes right away, but everyone is more comfortable by then. If anything the atmosphere almost seems more improved, and even if you wish it had come about by different circumstances, you're grateful for this.

Frisk is falling asleep by the stairs and Undyne and Alphys are cleaning up the tidy mess in the living room with you when you take the dirty dishes through the dining room to the kitchen, and Flowey nearly scares the Soul out of your body when he speaks up from the table.

“Are you guys _done_?”

“Jesus Christ, Flowey,” you huff, holding your chest until your hair stops standing on end. Had he been there the _whole_ night? How had someone like him been so quiet that entire time anyways?

The bowl and spoon are no longer with him, that you see, and instead there’s a book open up on the table instead, giving you some idea as to what he's been distracting himself with. “What were you doing in here," you ask anyways, curious despite your assumption.

“Practicing the guitar. What does it look like, _idiot_? I’ve been waiting for you to _leave_.”

You should probably be upset by his snarling, but the night's events have mostly left you drained. And besides, you can’t help but consider his situation.

Alone in here for hours on end, and during what had happened he had still never been noticed? It just didn’t sit with you right. “You could have joined us.”

“ _Pft_. With those freaks in there,” he asks bitingly. “Don’t bother. Frisk already offered, but I’m plenty fine by myself. Sure as hell had the practice…” this last thing he says is quieter, but you still catch it, and go to ask Flowey if he’s really okay.

“everything cool in here?”

G comes to stand by your side, but his eye sockets are set firmly on the flower. Flowey bristles as best as a plant can, which is pretty damn well in his case, and whatever trace of vulnerability he may have shown previously is now long gone. Rather than smirking though, his mouth takes the shape of a plastic grin, and you find yourself missing his more honest scowl. “Everything’s fine in here,” he practically sing-songs, and you grimace at the sound. The weight of one of G’s hands presses against your shoulder opposite of him, his arm brushing your back, and you let him lead you into the kitchen where you had originally intended to go.

Stiff from his close proximity--although you could never earnestly complain about _that_ \--you sit the dishes in the sink. He removes his arm when you turn on the water to clean them, but doesn’t leave you alone. “he threaten you at all?”

“What,” you ask almost dumbly with a blink, trying to see if he’s being serious, but the stern concern on his face doesn’t change. “No, I mean. He was kind of rude, but I think I'm almost used to it.”

G lets out a sigh through his nose, loosening up somewhat. “be careful around him,” he says, and begins to take off his jacket. You watch him roll up his sweater sleeves, your attention latching onto the sight of his bare arm bones, his ulna and radius--what? You'd been reading up on the human skeleton more then you probably should lately. It takes you a few seconds to pick up on that he intends on helping you with the dishes.

“I, I’m okay with doing it alone,” you say, but that doesn’t stop G from searching through a few drawers until he finds a dry towel, and he stands to your right, next to the dish rack. You glance behind you, seeing Flowey briefly on the table. “I don’t think he’ll say anything to me in here.”

“flowey…he’s one of alphs’ experiments,” G says without warning, and your jaw drops open slightly, making him chuckle. “and not one of the better ones.”

“O-oh.”

You think your imagining that smidgen of blue on his skull with how long it lasts, but there’s no mistaken it when he speaks next. “n’ we haven’t hung out much tonight.”

You half expect him to pull that carefree grin of his, but when he doesn’t it just makes the blush that comes to your cheeks just that much deeper. “O-okay.” And for a few minutes you get to wash and rinse dishes with G, who takes each one from your hand gently to dry and set them in the rack. Even with the voices in the next room and the sound of you running each dish under the water, it’s quiet, but you’re smiling the entire time.

 

When the void disappears your street fills its place. Still not used to teleportation, you have to take a moment before you back away from G, still holding onto his hand so he anchors you to earth while you’re still getting your bearing. “That’s so cool.”

“heh, it’s pretty useful,” G replies, as if he’s just talking about something as nifty as a Swiss army knife or a analogue clock that always knows when daily savings comes around, not something as mind blowing as _teleportation_. You have to check if the guy beside you is legitimately real, but it’s G alright: smooth talking, leather jacket wearing, particle physicist G. This does little to reassure you though that you’re not having a coma dream somewhere rather than actually existing alongside him.

Shaking your head lightly, you notice that your still holding onto his bony hands and let go, reddening brightly. “S-sorry, I was distracted.”

“s’ cool, no skin off my bones,” he says, wiggling his bare fingers at you, and it doesn’t fail to make you roll your eyes in mock exasperation, your accompanying laugh giving you away.

You hadn’t expected to see G that night but ultimately you had loved that it had happened. All things considered, it was a pretty good night, even if certain parts of it brought you down when thinking about them.

Alph and Undyne had both hugged you goodbye when you left, more Alph then Undyne really, with the blue scaled monster actually locking you in one arm again so she could muss up your hair. Meanwhile G had stood by grinning, obviously enjoying your struggle. Following that he had offered to “walk” you home, and you had leapt at the chance to experience his magic again. Well, it had been more like a bonus to just spending time with him, but it had still been really awesome.

Now that you’re at your actual apartment though, you wish that you had walked there instead, with how much longer it would have surely taken.

“hey, siri.” You turn your eyes away from the building, but G isn’t facing you. Instead his eye is on the sky, a half-there expression on his face. “what was his name?”

You attention drifts away from him, trailing in the air as you watch small flakes of snow scatter down from the dark, dark sky. The street is empty, it’s just you, and him, as if all the world had gone to bed and left you alone together for a few minutes more. You can’t see the stars due to the cloud coverage, but your name sake is up there somewhere, near your brother's.

“Aludra.” You can feel his eye return to you at that and you turn away from the sky, laughing lightly with a shrug. “It was a theme. Mom liked dogs, and stars. So Canis Major it was.” You fall silent, thinking mostly to yourself when you speak again. “Dad liked Wezen, but mom was given first pick. My name though, they both agreed on. Lu never complained. He was always really quiet…even before we lost them. And from then on…it was just us.”

It’s cold outside your hands are hidden away inside your coat, where they clinch and stay tight without him seeing. “But I didn’t mind in the end. I was happy, because he was there.” You face G, oddly comfortable with what you’re saying even if youre not alone.

“siri,” he begins, and you wait. Maybe this time he’ll apologize. Maybe he’ll be sorry that he ever asked, and you would have made one more mistake to really top off the night's events. But then he doesn’t. “i want you to meet someone.”

Caught off guard and your curiosity piqued, you frown slightly. “Who?”

His mouth widens a little, then falls again. “someone close to me. you’ll like him.”

Someone close to him? Family? A best friend? “Are they as cool as you?” Wow, that was lame. But it’s out, and you resist the urge to scramble to cover it up. Better to look like you meant it, so you don’t look weird.

“heh, the coolest.”

 

That night you dream of snow. Snow falling, snow all around you, snow in your joints, and your eyes, until you have to shake yourself to dislodge the pile up. But you’re only dimly aware of the cold, too focused on the little bundle of orange ahead of you to notice.

He plays with the white, piling it up and up, but it barely reaches your hips when he turns around to show you. He complained about you not bothering to help, but it was easy to convince him to try on his own. He’s always dashing ahead, ready to take on the world. And this time he’s so damn proud of what he’s done, it makes your heart burst, your smile so wide your eyes close from the strain.

When you open them again it’s to the sight of your bedroom ceiling. You don’t move, trying to hold onto every scrap of your dream until it just slips away.

 _Who was that?_ You ask yourself this, but you don’t know who you mean. You can’t see their face anymore, let alone the sight of your very own arms or legs as you stood before them. Sighing in defeat, you start to force yourself out of bed, but there’s a weight on your legs that stops you from moving.

Fear arcs through your bones. What was wrong with your legs? Until you look down and notice that nothing is wrong. There’s just a dog on them.

“A.D.?”

The dog in question shifts, their eyes remaining closed even as their tail thumps a few times before lying flat again. He’s clearly awake, but he’s not budging. Without a huge concern for bothering the dog, you reach over and grab your phone from beside your pillow, only one person coming to mind that might possibly know about your predicament.

(10:02) XXX-XXXX

_G, there’s a dog in my bed._

Clicking away on your phone grabbed A.D.’s attention, who lifted his head up and begins to pant, picking themselves up lazily after a time and going in for a pat.

(10:05) Bone Man

_kinda a weird thing to tell me siri_

_not that i didnt know you were a dog lover_

You raise an eyebrow before you get it, the urge to smack yourself literally hitting you in the face. A.D. jumps at your violent action, snuffling at your hands as they try to type a reply.

(10:06) XXX-XXXX

_No, no, no. I mean LD is with me_

“Shit,” you mumble, seeing your mistake after your text bubbles up onto the screen. In your attempt to type in A.D. you had made a mistake and the phone corrected it to LCD, and when you back peddled to remove the C, you somehow forgot to replace the L. _I’m too tired to be intelligent right now._

(10:10) Bone Man

_good for you two. did gd introduce you?_

(10:11) XXX-XXXX

_Sorry, typo. I meant AD._

_Wait, how many monster dogs with abbreviated names are there??_

You nearly drop your phone onto your bed when it begins to ring, A.D.’s ears perking up when the first few taps of Spooky Scary Skeleton starts to play. Cutting off the jingle, you lift your phone to your ear, flattening your hand with one hand. “Hel-?” Laughter filters through from the other end, heating your face to a million degrees. “G!”

“ _s-sorry, siri. just foolin’ with you_ ,” he says, amusement still in his voice. “ _you know, if you’re looking for some lovin’ you’re barking up the wrong tree_.”

“I-I’m going to hang up!” There was no way you would but he didn’t know that.

“ _i’m done, i’m done. promise.”_

“…pinky promise?” You feel childish for asking, but he does this too you it seems.

“ _cross my heart, hope to die_.” You can practically see swiping his bony finger over his chest, once then twice, and you’re glad that he can’t see you smiling.

“So, um, LD?”

“ _lesser dog. he was at grillbys when we went. served in the guard with gd.”_ You hear a shuffling around, the clink of glass maybe. Was he eating? _“there’s a couple, too. plus doggo, but he’s single…if you’re interested.”_

Your gasp was both real and not. “ _You lied_ ,” you accuse in half honest betrayal, A.D. yipping as if to agree with you, although you don’t know if the dog actually understands what’s going on. G snorts on the other end, marking your victory.

“ _ha-had to. had to take it, couldn’t help it,”_ he’s still laughing when he tries to be serious about it, “ _i’ll make it up to you_.”

You try not to let your excitement slip into your voice and ruin your fun, but that doesn’t stop you from replying quickly, “How’s that?”

“ _an old friend of mine has been lookin’ for someone to help him out at his shop,”_ G says. “ _if you’re interested i can give you his info, and drop a line to let him know you’re comin’.”_

It’s not what you expected—what were you expecting, a date?—but his generosity once again amazes you with its presence. Not that you thought he was a bad guy, but did G really have to keep reminding you of how unblievable he is? “R-really? You would do that for me? I-I don’t want to be a bother.”

“ _heh, you’re on the far side of being a bother, starlight,”_ G mummers, catching you with a blush.

"Is this the person you mention you wanted me to meet? Ye-yesterday, I mean?"

“ _nah, someone different_ ," he says on the other end, sounding half distracted before his voice refocuses. " _we, uh, even then_?”

“Oh.” He means the teasing. “Y-yeah, we’re even.”

“ _cool. was gonna tell you ‘bout him anyways.”_

“That’s cheating!” The betrayal is back, and so is his laughter, but you couldn't be irritated even if you tried.

 

The scrap of paper with the address is small in your red finger hand, your skin nipped by the cold for every second you dare remove them from the safety of your coat. G had given you the information over the phone and you had written it down rather than save it into the device, thinking that showing up at a possible new employer’s business while staring down at your cell might rub them the wrong way. You want to come off as professional as you possible could, even going so far as to wear one of your nice button ups and a better pair of jeans than normal.

The address is odd, farther into the city and thus away from town then you expected. It had to be harder to get a business out here, despite the bills passed for monster equality, and anyone who tried despite the obvious ambivalence in the air towards monster-kind had to be impressive. But they knew G, apparently, and so far none of his friends or acquaintances had failed in that regard.

When you find the shop it has a sign hanging both above its door and another pressed against the wood work, both saying in thin but elegantly designed letters: GERSON’S MANY WONDERS.

It’s the same name that’s written on your slip of paper, so you know you have the right place. Breathing in two lungful’s of cold air you steady yourself, tucking the paper away and opening the door with it’s glass window and gold handle.

A bell tinkles over head when you enter, small and bronze, and you hesitate for a moment to get a feel for the place…and love it instantly. The air is thick with the smells of books, and there are a lot of them from what you can see. To your immediate left is a short walkway that leads around to a countertop, an old fashioned register atop the dark wood and a glass display case making up most of it’s space. Bookshelves face you to the center right, and more are along the far right wall, the shelves stuffed ful until not a lick of room is left for more to be slid into place. The floor is the same polished wood as the rest of the shop, but there’s a long red carpet with a golden trim that leads from the door to the far end of the register.

There aren’t just books in the shop, but also several somethings in display cabinets that glimmer under the light of the simple, brass chandelure hanging from the ceiling. They are geodes, rough edged and pock marketed lumps of rock cut down the middle to reveal beautiful, gleaming gems inside, several of which seem to glow faintly as if they hold some sort of magic of their very own.

There are also other baubles: small, antique toys like a child sized drum, a ball-and-cup, a rocking unicorn, and some simple puzzles. These are fewer in number then the geodes, but they’re all well cared for from what you can tell, polished until their various shades of brown wood are revleaed.

But what really stands out is the massive weapon on the far wall, a giant iron hammer by the looks of it. It has a bejeweled hilt, a shaft wrapped in leather, and head that is well-worn, with many scratches, nicks, and blotches of discoloration. It’s somewhat out of place with everything in the store, but it also just fits as a decoration piece, something any customer would certainly stare in awe at. Although, who could actually use the thing had to be a pretty big person themselves, someone perhaps like King Asgore. Anyone else would surely be crushed under the weight of it-.

“She’ll be needing a shining sometime soon.”

You nearly jump out of your skin with the unexpected presence at your side, and you have to tilt your chin down slightly to meet their face. They're a monster by the looks it, and one that bears a striking resemblance to a turtle, shell and all. But they also have a short, wiry white beard, and their skin is dotted with age spots, the eyes they sit under twinkling from where they look up at you. “Lookin’ to go to war?”

“Oh, um, no. Ar-are you Mister Gerson, by any chance?” There’s no one else in the shop, but you could be wrong.

The monster’s eyes widen and then he bursts into a dry cackle, his hooked mouth wide with merriment. What did you say?

“ _Mister?_ I haven’t heard anyone your age call me that in _years_. Makes me sound like a dried up codger,” he says, making you panic for a moment but he’s still smiling. “Which is an apt description. You must be the one Sans told me about.” Sans? You haven’t heard that name spoken out loud in over week. “But I knew that right away.”

“How, how so?” You ask, wondering if G had given a description of you over the phone as well as your name.

“You’re his mirror image,” he says, and reaches forward, one thick claw tapping you firmly on your sternum, directly above where your Soul flutters in your chest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Siri, I have a stutter I may never grow out of. Their reason for having one is similar to my own, and I find it much easier to speak, and speak almost completely clear if I'm really into one I'm talking about--like trying to convince someone that they're a decent person.  
> Also this is awesome: http://muskka.tumblr.com/post/142079734530/choose-one-of-them-ask-sans-out-throw-a


	9. Of History and Mana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tired, v tired  
> here thing, yes, take thing

After the sign on the shop door was turned from open to "on break", in the back room of the store, accessible from behind the counter, you sat across from Gerson as he poured tea into two earthenware cups. The smell was flowery, and nothing you could specifically place, but he saw the inquisitiveness of your nose and answered for you: “Globe Amaranth. There were few teas to be cultivated in the Underground. Since I’ve left I’ve been indulging,” his smile could be called mischievous, the shine of his eyes belaying a youthfulness that had not faded with age. He sits down in the short stool across from yours, a round, simple table sitting between you. The room itself is partly storage, with several thick wooden crates on one end along with some shelving that holds several items currently withheld from display, while the other held a desk with a multitude of diagrams on the wall of above it. A window high above on the wall opposite of the archway to the front let natural light in, but there is also had a small lamp lit on one of the crates nearby.  

“D-do you mind if I ask something?” You tentatively begin, and he chuckles gently. 

“How did I know about your Soul?” His guess is right, and you nod with your cup warming your hands, supposing that it was pretty obvious. “Older boss monsters such as myself have a cultivated natural ability in seeing Souls while they are still contained within their physical vessels. Other monsters like myself would include the queen, of course, and although Dreemurr never had the natural talent for it, any heirs born of Toriel would probably be quite adept.”  

“Older monsters? Th-then monsters from the war? The one against the humans?” 

“Precisely,” he nods, and it feels as though for a moment that you're sitting across from a professor in one of your old college classes, leaning closer while you listen to a subject you're very much interested in. “We are not all necessarily boss level creatures, monsters capable of great power, but typically those left over from those times were of that caliber. Very few still exist, and only two have children that I know of.” 

“Like Grillby and his daughter?” 

“Ah! So you’ve met Ms. Fuku then?” 

“N-no, I’ve met Grillby, though. Briefly. I visited his new bar with G, a-a few nights ago,” you admit, then notice the disapproving frown he’s sporting. 

“G? That is the name that boy is going by nowadays," squinting at first before he gives into a  sigh, eyes widening with a raise his bushy eyebrows, and a shrug to himself. "I’ll not question his reasoning, we all have our own.” 

There it was again, the question of G’s name. Eager to somehow learn about it, and him, you ask, “Are you close?” 

“Ha! He didn’t tell you, did he?” Gerson laughs, lines wrinkling up around his eyes. “I was a mentor to Sans, taught him a thing or two about the world when his father was too busy to keep up with him in the lab.” Father? No one had ever mentioned a _father_ , let alone G. Perhaps seeing the way you screw up your eyebrows, Gerson goes on to explain. “Gaster was the first royal scientist to the king. A real strange fellow, all of his friends knew that. But smart, incredibly so. Sans is no different, get him stuck on a subject that he cares enough to put any effort into and he’s no different. Boss level, too, that Gaster, but no one’s seen him in years.” 

“W-wait,” you have to stop him there, processing this new information. “So Gaster was before the war as well? C-could he-?” 

“See Souls? Yes, very adept at it, too, although you never would have known it. He was always interested in less insubstantial things, like the void and all that wash he would go on about,” Gerson says almost dismissively, but you’re still taking it in. The void? Did he mean that space you saw every time G teleported you away? “Being around that lab for so long, Sans fell into the same interest, but luckily never dropped the matter of the other. The Soul is a very important aspect to monster-kind, that Gaster never cared for it only proved how odd he was, just as he never cared for fighting. There was reason why I was called the Hammer and he a scientist. I taught the captain of the royal guard as well, but where she saw thrill in fighting, Sans would rather draw diagrams or nap. Shame, some would have said. One would think the ability to see Souls would make you just that much better at fighting, but I think it makes it harder, really.” 

Gerson was presenting you with a load of new information, but you can't help it when your concerns latch frantically onto one in particular: “G…G can see Souls?” 

Gerson pauses at your tone of voice, your eyes blown wide by fear….and he guffaws, making you flinch. This was a serious topic! If Sans, or G, or whatever could see Souls, then surely he had seen your own! That had to mean he knew everything, hiding your Words had been completely pointless-! “Sans wouldn’t know his own Soul if it smacked him in the face," Gerson states, catching you off guard again. "Boy hardly ever gave it a glance, and even so, with the state it’s in now, he probably wouldn’t recognize that you have his other half even if your removed the two from your chests and made a comparison.” The humor is gone now, the older man appearing closer to his age then he previously had been.  

You're…disappointed. Relieved, but disappointed. It would be easier, maybe, if he just knew. Then it would mean despite how awkward and so utterly human you are, that maybe all of his friendliness had been a sign that he really accepted you as his Soul Mate. It wasn’t exactly hard for you to wear long sleeves all of the time since you were given your Words, but what was hard was standing next to him, or miles away from him, or even before you knew him at all, wondering just what it would be like to actually _be_ with your Soul Mate in _that_ way.  

There was also the matter of Gerson's glum reaction to your line of questioning. Every time the subject of G's past was brought up, the monsters you sat with grew upset. It was obvious that they all cared about him very much. _But I'm still learning_ , you think, setting aside your half finished tea, the remainder of it having long gone cold. It was normal enough for a Soul Mate to come late into someone's life, hell, some Mate's lived eons away from each other, across the world even, and there was always that chance of losing them prematurely. _He's mine by fate, by some magical connection...but I'll never deserve him unless I try to understand._  

“G hasn’t told me what happened.” You finally say, “The others, Undyne and Alphys, his friends, they mentioned that…that something bad happened? But that I should ask G about it.” 

Gerson nods ruefully. “It would be wise. Even before…this G business, he wasn’t very apt at sharing things of a more personal nature. But the girls are correct, this is Sans’ story to tell.” 

   
 

The mood lifts at that, Gerson escorting you out of the back room to show you around the store after you down the rest of your tea: it's bitter, sure, but you're not about to waste something given to you in kindness.  

You follow Gerson as he points out how the books are sorted, how many types of geodes that are available to buy, and by the time he’s wiggling the cash register drawer, explaining that it stuck sometimes you realize that he’s treating you like a new employee.  

Suddenly flustered you try what you can to remember what he mentions, but he doesn’t pile on too much at once, laughing when you have to thank him profusely for the job, but what about your credentials? 

“I can see it plain as day under that skin of yours,” he says, tapping the bone beneath this eye socket. “And I’ve got a good eye.” 

Gerson offers that you start out in a day or so, and when you leave his shop it’s with a box of damiana tea in your pocket, the monster having given you a wink before turning it over. You didn’t recognize the name, but you were happy to accept it, mostly in a wonderful mood after the turn out of the day. You had learned more about G and monsters in general, you had a new job with an awesome new boss, and G was all to thank for recommending you speak to Gerson to begin with.  

Thinking of G as you walk along the sidewalk, you take out and flip open your phone to tell him the good news.  

(1:45) Bone Man 

 _never doubted ya_  

This sends a flush of pleasure into your cheeks, but a thought makes you worry at your lip, considering spilling the beans on what else Gerson had divulged in. 

(1:47) XXX-XXXX 

 _He also told me you could see Souls?_ (saved as draft) 

 _He kind of knows we’re Soul Mates and I think you’re the only one who doesn’t know now??_ (saved as draft) 

 _He told me you were a regular lazy bones when you were little._  

(1:47) Bone Man 

 _he’s not_ _tellin_ _you a fibula with that one_  

 _what are your hours?_  

(1:48) XXX-XXXX 

 _I start in a few days, and it’s from 11-6._  

(1:48) Bone Man 

 _lunch break?_  

(1:49) XXX-XXXX 

 _1:30, I think he said, why do you ask?_  

(1:49) Bone Man 

 _in case_ _u ever_ _need a_ _lunch_ _date_  

 _i’m_ _your skele-man_  

You’re practically bouncing on your toes at this point, okay, maybe you most definitely are. But you try to keep your cool, continuing your texting without, hopefully, giving yourself away. _He said lunch date, not actual date. He’s just being friendly, cool it, Siri._  

The rest of the week goes by smoothly, and before you know it you’re working at Gerson’s fulltime.  

During the second you're not surprised when Undyne rolls into the shop with a nervous Alphys, the longer woman greeting you with a slap on the back, and a large bad of your lunches in her other hand. "Hiya, punk! You having a good time in this stinky shop?"  

You're taken aback at this, feigning insult with a hand brought swiftly to your chest and you lips widened dramatically: "Stinky! I'll have you know I enjoy this smell," you say, feeling even lighter when your burst of confidence is met with her loud guffaws of laughter.  

"Is that a Vindici I hear," Gerson calls out from across the shop and emerges from between the politics and economics shelves. Undyne's face shifts from a delighted amusement to something  warmer, the warrior woman crossing the shop in two quick strides before she scoops up her mentor in a bone crushing hug. " _Ooooooooold maaaaaaaan_!" 

Gerson laughs out loud, sounding much the same like Undyne to be honest. "Watch it, girl! You're going to crack this old shell!" His protest is met with a disbelieving cackle from Undyne: "As if! It's gonna take a lot more than that to dust you, you geezer!" Despite this she sets him down on his feet, but no sooner does she do so that you're met with the jaw dropping sight of Gerson _picking up_ _Undyne_ _by her legs and lifting her over his head._  

 _Holy shit,_ your mind stutters, you eyes seeking Alphys for answer. She titters pleasantly, but meets your unvoiced question with understanding. "The same th-thing happened when we left the mountain."  

 _Huh_ , you blink, and shake your head lightly in amusement. You 're starting to get used to having someone as boisterous as Undyne in your life. "Having a good day, doctor?" 

Alphys startles slightly but then blushes, smiling wobbly. "Y-yes, Jones." You continue your talk as the pair of you circle around to the back room, Undyne and Gerson joining you shortly after, but only after Gerson waps Undyne on the leg for jumping over his counter. "Watch the merchandise, missy." 

It's weird seeing Undyne look chastised for the light scolding, but soon after the food is divided up with Undyne, Alphys, and yourself sitting at the table. Gerson lopes out of the room to "give you young'ins time to chatter".  

"JONES," Undyne snaps while your in the middle of biting into your triple-toffee layer cake from Muffett's bakery, staring wide eyed at the woman as she continues to speak with lettuce from her sandwich caught between her fangs. "'OW YOU NO OW ALFSS PHA ME?" 

A fork still stuck in your mouth, you glance at Alphys for help. The yellow monster sweeps her wide eyes away from her girlfriend. When she sits her food down and clasps her hands in obvious hesitation, you pull the rest of your bite off the fork in your mouth and swallow it, placing the utensil aside and waiting.  

"U-Udyne me-me-means tha-that we've been wa-watching FullMetal Al-alchemist recently," she begins, her stutter worse than normal and acting as a clear sign that she's uncomfortable. "Whichisreallygreatbytheway! IreallylikethewayAlphonsestooduptohisbrotherandaskedhimabouthowhecametobestuckinhisarmor, and itwasreallysweethowtheymadeupafter, a-afteritit it was...um, really hard for Edward to um admit, how afraid he was about th-the subject," Alphy's burst of exhilaration about talking about one of her favorite subjects putters out with the silence around her, as if she remembers why she starting talking to begin with. She clears her throat, shaking her head. "U-undyne and I, we uh noticed that E-Ed mentioned a really famous alchemist? A-and-." 

"WE WANTED TO KNOW IF YOU KNEW ABOUT HER BEING RELATED TO THAT ALCHEMIST GUY?" Undyne abrupt cut in sends you reeling in confusion, you're face going completely blank as you try to think of what they could possibly be- 

"Wait, you mean Hohenheim," you ask, brows furrowing when you look between the two.  

Hohenheim was the brothers' father, an accomplished alchemist like his sons.  

Primarily the show centers around the brothers, Edward and Alphonse, young prodigies that had followed in their father's footsteps in the pursuit of mastering the dead science of alchemy, which was said to be able to turn lead into gold. One of the old myths was that alchemists were always in search of an all-powerful tool, the philosopher's stone. In the anime it was the boys' goal to create or find a stone, and use it to correct a mistake made in their past. Hohenheim is not only an alchemist in the series, but _the_ alchemist, the one that supposedly made a stone when so many others had failed. 

"What do you mean, related to..." You trail off, but then you jolt as it clicks into place in your head, unintentionally making Alphys flinch as well. 

Hohenheim is only one name for the character, his other name is that of the very person he's based of off, someone that once existed in real life, hundreds of years ago!  

" _You're related to Nicolas_ _Flamel?"_ Alphys has covered her snout between her hands and looks up at you meekly, your height difference amplified by you having stood up when you finally understood. When she nods in affirmation it makes you squeak, Undyne's booming laughter filling the room. 

"HOLY SHIT, YOU DIDN'T _KNOW_?" Her amusement makes you wilt slightly, and you finally sit down, aware of how ridiculous you must look. When her laughter on for a solid minute with Undyne practically in tears you begin to feel sour.  

"I really didn't know," you say defensively, but Undyne starts to calm down, and your brief frustration is swept up with a question that comes knocking loudly on the door of your mind: "Wait, but Nicolas Flamel was a human, wasn't he?" 

Alphys nods jerkily, "Pre-precisely. Ni-Nicolas Flamel's family merged with the monster side of my family d-during a tra-traditional human wedding. Th-the monster they wed, they decided to take on Fa-Flamel's human family name."  

"So there were inter-species relationships between humans and monsters?" You're a little dazed at the information as Alphys nods again, more sure of herself when she sees how interested you are in the subject.  

"E-even during wa-war time it wasn't uncommon, only, it was a lot harder to sustain relationships with the feuding," she says. "B-but Gerson would know more about tha-that subject then me."  

You hum in thought, thinking that you should totally ask your boss more about the subject, and nearly laugh. Boss and boss-monster. He was pre-war, afterall. "And you were related to Flamel," you ask again, awe escaping into your voice when your awe really settles in. A historical figure like that? Even if they were mostly known for something fictional...but was it? "D-doctor, what he did, what Flamel supposedly a-accomplished...was he a mage?" 

Alphys' raises her eyebrow ridge at this, not expecting this question. "O-oh, yes, I suppose he was. I don’t think that all of the humans, the human mages, I-I mean, that they hated us? S-some of them may have got-gotten along with us just fine. Bu-but the stone?" Here she shrugs, lowering her snout slightly and looking at you between her eyelashes, self-conscious about there being yet another gap in her knowledge. "Whe-whether he ever really made it, and brought pe-people back? Li-like the Amalgamates...I don't know." 

You aren't really disappointed by this, really how could you expect Alphys to know a lot about the human half of her family after who knows how many generations of the monster half having been sealed in the Underground? But still. "That's really cool, though," you say unhelpfully, and clarify when they look at you in question. "T-that you would be related to him, I think. An-and that humans and monsters were really that close, sometimes? Even despite...despite all that happened..."  

It made you wonder, if so many more people had been like Alphys' family and the other humans that paired up with monsters, would things have fared any better? 

The topic changes with a nudge from Undyne, moving onto how Alphys s doing with her research, what new anime they planned on picking up, and how gung-ho they both are to see how FullMetal Alchemist will end. By the time they leave, Gerson receiving another shell-cracking hug from Undyne, and even Alphys wavs weakly when Gerson addresses her in farewell.  

The next week you find yourself falling into a familiar pattern, and with it you become more acquainted with the shop itself, as well as it's customers. 

There’s a mix of both monsters and humans that visit, more of the latter than the former, and usually humans because they wanted a glance at an actual monster. No one comes in to hassle you, much to your relief, and Gerson is more than willing to accommodate you on any knowledge of monsters that you wish you acquire, especially when you discover how easy it is to get him into going on about his past, so he regales you about monster history pretty often.  

The shop itself is also pretty awesome, filled with interesting books to read, and things to look at that Gerson himself dug up from the Underground. He had his own interesting collection down below, and more than once something would fall down into the Underground from the Surface, forgotten or lost by mankind and left for someone like the old monster to find them. This was how monsterkind managed to more or less keep up with the evolution of human culture even if there was only so much they could do with broken technology, it helped inspire their own. 

Oddly enough, monsters weren't incredibly knowledgeable on humans themselves, if that made sense. Sure, they used their old furniture sometimes, as well as knick knacks, broken computers, and so on...but it wasn't often that they saw images of humans themselves? Pictures withered with the exposure to water and time, statues broke or eroded away, and those that perused the "dump" where the garbage fell and collected didn't typically hang onto anything depicting humans physically because they simply weren't useful. What idea of humans that the common folk did have even twisted over time, shifting and changing as often as humans made up new ideas on what monsters looked like. 

"They had no idea?" 

"Ha! How'd you think the kid woulda crossed the Underground so easily if every monster they ran into automatically knew what they were? Sure, kids like Undyne knew, but that's because she was specifically trained to capture humans when they fell." 

Gerson certainly had a point, but it didn't help you feel very much better about how so much of mankind had pushed monsterkind's history into supposedly being nothing but mere childish superstition. You didn't never learned in school about how monsterkind had helped shape the pyramids, or how they had even participated in gladiatorial combat under the watchful eyes of Augustus Caesar. In fact, it was incredibly strange how so much of monster history was just...gone! 

"Magic, my dear," Gerson answered you one evening as he locked up the shop, you standing on the sidewalk behind him with attention that remained rapt until you felt a familiar wave of frustration for the answer. It was a common one, magic being the cause of so many incidents in history. Magic had laws, boundaries, but it was still a staggering force of nature, made more so by the culmination of skill wielded by powerful mages. "The victor wiping the slate clean of the loser's triumphs, their culture, and their very existence. It's still a common practice today, even without mind-warping magics like the ones they used. The cause of Atlantis' fall is still mostly a guessing game to us now, and it was a city of great ingenuity and wealth."  

You could see Gerson's eyes twinkling in the dark when your curiosity returned with augusto at his words: did he imply what you thought he did? That Atlantis was _real_? 

You positively ate up everything Gerson had to offer, and in the process learned just how astounding of a person Gerson truly was.  

It was often that people called asking for Gerson specifically, and you learned that he has several ventures beginning with important human historians, explorers, and writers. Gerson himself would be out there, helping uncover and write history himself, he explains one day, but “even he knew when it was best to hang up your hat” and he “deserved some down time”.  

Maybe Gerson is getting on in age, although it is sometimes hard to tell with how easily he lifts his hammer from it's place on the wall to clean it once in awhile. But there's a large part of you that knew better as well. Monsters were still "new" to the modern world. They were gaining rights, but it's still hard to get around as easily as they once could. King Asgore Dreemurr, standing in the limelight as he is, faces heart-wrenching criticism daily, and even Mettaton, with his positively crowd-working personality is dragged through the mud so often in public forums like Facebook, or Twitter that it makes your stomach churn.  

But Gerson never complains. The old man takes everything in stride, tackling his work with a youthful ease even you envy, and he's almost always smiling while doing so. 

All in all working under Gerson has turned out to be the best job you had ever had, but despite a certain someone asking about your hours…G just doesn't show up. You texted him of course, but your conversations were happening less often, and by week three you were more than a little anxious. Maybe he was really busy, or maybe he was tired of speaking to you? Maybe you were overthinking it, or maybe he had connected the dots and ran for the hills? Either way, no matter how much you fretted and fussed over the issue, it didn’t solve anything, and simply just talking to the guy seemed overboard.  

Meanwhile at home BP was getting more harried. His play was drawing closer and closer to its premier date, and he had to have his lines, as well as everyone else’s, down flat. More than once you helped him practice at home, but it was always the better idea to coax him into eating, and watching some television to relax: you didn’t want him to get burned out by something he genuinely enjoyed, after all. 

But even with how much you enjoyed your job, seeing your new friends on occasion, and helping your roommate find some semblance of sanity...you were growing tired. Both literally, and figuratively.  

Your nightmares had picked up, when they came at all. Other nights by the time you went to bed you were exhausted, sleeping dreamlessly until your morning alarm would awake you rudely the next morning. You were also often distracted, not only due to lack of sleep, but because your mind often strayed to G. What was he up to? Was he eating? Was he working day in, day out, like Alphys had hinted at before? Maybe you were being ridiculous, but even when he wasn't immediately on your mind, it was often that you felt suddenly...sad. Angry. Just, bad in general. You could be in the middle of filling an order, or taking a shower, and you would flinch, your Soul churning uncomfortably under your skin.  

Was it G? Did your Soul know something you didn't?  

You did do the sensible thing, answering as casually as you could about how G was going through texting, but his answers were always so vague. He was "fine", he was "okay", and, hey, did you "hear the one about the turtle and the egg"? You wanted to press him for more, but also didn't want to come off as obnoxious, and clingy. Maybe he was just busy? After all, his world didn't revolve around you...no matter what kind of bond you had. 

By the time half of the third week was done, you were totally out of it, slapping on a lame smile for everyone when you could, although Gerson and Toriel always knew better. Maybe it was something about being a boss monster, or being older in general, or maybe inToriel's case as far as you knew it was because she was a mother. You had been fending off her concerns for a few days by then, not wanting her to worry, but were slowly cracking under the pressure. Was it supposed to be this hard, being away from your Mate? You always thought that it might be, but thinking about an experience as opposed to actually living it, it was a whole other ball game. 

Gerson is out of the shop one Wednesday, off to buy some sandwiches from a new deli he likes, and has left you alone. It doesn’t happen often, but you're flattered that he trusts you enough to leave you by yourself, and you're paging through a book while only looking at the illustrations when the door bell chimes.  

“Good morning, welcome to…” you begin, but then trail off, your words scrambling when you see who it is. Your heart is thumping in your chest, but you’re pretty sure your Soul is freaking out more, as if the sheer time away from your Mate has increased its neediness tenfold, and when G strides over you lean against the counter separating the two of you automatically. It’s ridiculous, what you're thinking. He’s as tall as you remember, he’s wearing his trade mark coat that fits his shoulders so well, and when his eye sockets land on you the edges seem to grow softer even as you can tell how so much darker the exhaustion lines around them have become. 

“hey,” he tries, his voice rougher than normal, but it sounds sweet to your ears, even as it makes you worry. He’s against the counter as if for support, his hands buried in his jean pockets, but he meets you eye for eye. “sorry ‘bout not visiting.” The apology is thick in his voice. 

“It’s okay,” you say, pouring every ounce of your relief that he’s there into the smile you give, and G’s expression shifts in a way that’s unreadable to you, even as your Soul fills with hope. “You’re here now.” 

   
 

G sits behind the counter with you with a mug of warmed liquid creamer between his bony hands. He propped up on your seat at your insistence, while you use Gerson’s, holding onto a warm mug of tea yourself. He’s not looking at you, but at least he’s sipped at his drink a little.  

“Will you…be okay?” It’s all you can come up, the typical question— _are you okay_ —sounding just as absurd in your head as it normally would out loud.  

“yeah. work…s’its been busy,” his next words come carefully, as if he’s nervous to say them out loud. There’s a wall there, a solid distance between him and the rest of the world that keeps him from totally relaxing. You can see it in the way he holds himself, all too used to seeing it in BP whenever his old boss calls, or in yourself sometimes when mistakenly catch your reflection. “just…can i hang here for a bit?” 

“If you don’t mind,” you say, as if you’re the one asking him to stay instead, and you want him to stay, to take whatever time he needs. G glances up at you, and you swear you can see his mouth widen faintly until he looks away again. With his mug still held in his hands between his legs, G leans down so far until his skull presses against your knee, sending a wave of warmth up your spine. 

“…sorry.”  

You don’t know what to say, so you don’t say anything. Sitting your mug aside, you barely hesitate before placing a hand on the surface of his head. It’s warm, as warm as his hand feels when it holds yours, and when you smooth your thumb across his temple as he did when he held your wrist he sighs.  

   
 

When Gerson returns through the front door crowing about the lucky deal he's managed to grab for the sandwiches, you look hastily down at the skeleton in your lap, but G barely moves. Gerson notices that you’re turned away and lifts an eyebrow, his other joining it when he nears the counter and sees who else is on the other side. The old man’s face becomes scandalous, raising the temperature of your face by a few degrees, but you can’t think of anything to say to explain yourself without fear of waking up G. 

“Take the rest of the day off,” Gerson speaks for you, winking comically. “You look like you two need it.” His clearly amused smile nearly makes you squeak, but you don’t protest, not budging until the old man has circled around the two of you and stepped into the back.  

“Sa—G?” You lightly shake his shoulder, hoping to rouse him without causing him to fall out of his chair. G doesn’t budge though, and it takes a few more tries before he begins to stir. His eye opens up and blinks blearily up at you. “Ready to go home?” 

Rather than respond vocally he sits up in his chair, and if it weren’t for how exhausted he still appears you would find amusement in his expression: had he been drooling? 

You leave him temporarily to grab your coat from the back, and when you return to the front his eyes are closed. Feeling more courageous than normal due to your concern for him overriding you’re the nervous energy in your bones, you take his hand, getting his notice and pulling him out of his chair. “We’ll take the bus to your place, is that okay?” 

G doesn’t respond verbally, instead drawing closer to you in a way that makes that makes your precious confidence falter, and the shop falls away from around you in a blink.  

You’ve seen the void the last time he used his teleportation, keeping your eyes open long enough so you could catch a glimpse of the vast nothingness of the in-between, the beyond microscopic plane of existence between molecules. Its darkness, but then it’s not. It’s the physical embodiment of shadow, but it’s not. It just _isn’t,_ but your mortal brain choose to imagine it as darkness, if only because that much would make some sort of sense. There’s no smells, or sound, and maybe if you lingered there for a touch too long, something in you would break, but you’re never there for more than an instant, and when that passes, you stand on sidewalk that runs along a normal street. Physical, tangible, but no less real.  

“G? This is my road,” you say to him, confused as to why he would not rather go home. 

“too tired,” he nearly slurs, and you’re quick to push yourself close to his side, looping an arm around his torso to keep him standing.  

“Teleporting doesn’t exhaust you, does it,” you ask, but the weight of him, however slight, on your side tells you all you need to know. “G, you didn’t use it to get to me, did you?” 

“wan’ see you,” he mumbles, his head drooping until his chin is against his chest. You have no time to focus on blushing, instead taking his arm and placing it over your shoulder. Taking hold of his hand to give yourself more of grip on him, you then begin walking towards the steps of the complex. 

Getting up the stairs takes time with G’s slow and fumbling walk, but it’s not strenuous. He must barely weigh more than you, if that, and when you reach the door, you’re no more tired than you were before. Getting the door open is a little awkward, but thankfully there’s an elevator in the lobby that takes you all the way up to your floor without interruptions.  

It’s easy enough to unlock your apartment door and step inside, the silence that surrounds you telling you that BP has yet to come home from work despite the hour. _Thank goodness. I can just imagine what he would say about this._  

The couch is a short walk away, but you dismiss it right away. You didn’t like the idea of G sleeping there and potentially hurting his spine, and when BP did come home, he would only be woken. Which only left one place: your bedroom. 

G’s eyes are closed, so he can’t see you biting at your lip when you take him to your room and stand in the doorway. It could be cleaner, you suppose. Inside is your computer desk with its small shelf thick with old textbooks. The floor has no dirty clothing, but other books are on every other surface, some in the process of being read or reread. There’s also your dresser, underwear drawer mercifully left closed, but your bed isn’t completely made. You never tidy it up completely, thinking the rumpled look just makes it appear more inviting at the end of the day, but it has more than one blanket atop it to help get through the colder winter nights. 

After you lead G over to it, you carefully sit him down, the skeleton not outright falling over with you still giving some support, but he doesn't open his eyes either. Is he asleep? You consider his jacket for a moment before removing it from his shoulders, the shifting of his arms telling you that there was some consciousness left of him. His boots are next, which take a few moments of tugging, but he’s wearing thick white socks underneath to keep his feet bone dry.  

G settles back against your pillows when you give him the slightest motion to do so against his shoulders, his legs following slowly after. From there his body acts on its own, rolling onto his side before he curls slightly into himself. You don’t know what it is that compels him to reach out and snag loosely onto your jeans though when you turn to leave so he might have some privacy, but you can’t leave once he does.  

Swallowing nervously, you glance at your bed and think over your options, before choosing to sit at the edge near his stomach, his grip falling away and his arm curving around your waist from behind. He curls in closer, his other arm tucked laying between his head and your leg, before falling still.  

Maybe you’re being selfish. G isn’t thinking clearly and when he wakes he’ll not want you so close, he may not even want to find himself laying in your bed, but you can’t help but covet this time you’ve been given. His body is warm, his stomach and arm pressing close, and you can feel the rise and fall of his lungs expanding. You’ve never had someone reach out to you for comfort like this, even if it’s unconsciously, and it leaves a pleasant fuzziness in your chest.  

So you decide to enjoy it while you can, until he realizes his mistake. Reaching forward, you place your hand again on his skull as you did in the shop, and smile as your Soul hums at the contact. 

   
 

Alas the human body isn’t meant to hold itself in one position for too long, and by hour two your back creaks whenever you lean to one side or another. G is still fast asleep, totally dead to the world, so his grip is slack enough that you could probably stand if you wanted to. You lean forward for a time with you elbows on your knees, but it does little to help. You could lean _back_ but you don’t want your movement against him to possibly wake him, and nor do you want to push you luck any farther with how close you are as is. So standing up it is then, and you do so, moving slowly as you go, the bed still complaining as you lift your weight away. G doesn’t budge though, and you let out a sigh, aware that you feel colder now around your waist. 

Your leave your bedroom, clicking the door shut behind you quietly, and make your way to the kitchen, stretching your legs out along the way. Your stomach is growling something fierce by the time you open up the fridge, pondering if G cared for AI steak sauce or even mustard, when the front door opens up.  

“ _Jonnnnneeeees_ ,” your roommate groans as he walks in, wrestling with his hoodie and mostly losing before he flails enough that it goes flying off. “I am so sick of _pasta_.” 

“Then don’t eat it,” you state plainly, amused by his anguish, but BP doesn’t look any happier when he comes marching into the kitchen.  

“Then what the hell am I supposed to eat? Bread? Like some kind of peasant?” BP walks past you, making a beeline for the snacks cabinet to pull out some cookies. You swore he ate the things more often then he ate spaghetti at work, but that didn’t stop him from inhaling a mountain of it a month.  

“You love bread. Do you think we need the duck sauce?” You question him idly, checking the sell buy date, and he leans over your shoulder, crumbs already stuck to the fur around his mouth.  

“I don’t know. You smell weird,” his statement comes with a sniff, and you flinch away, eyes going wide as saucers. “That dog still coming over here? I don’t know why I asked, there are biscuits in the cabinet.” This is said with a sneer, but BP despises AD for good reason, the dog naturally inclined towards annoying him more than anyone else. You didn’t think it was because of the obvious stereotype, AD just seemed to sense an easily irritable person like a shark senses blood, and he's just as inclined to go in for the kill. 

“Yeah, but he’s not here,” you mutter, putting the sauce away. You supposed that you could just ask G after BP left, if G stuck around long enough to be hungry for anything.  

“Nah, that’s not it. What _is_ that,” his nose wrinkles, and you decide to give up for now, closing the fridge door and stealing a few cookies on your way to the living room. “Fucking _hell_.” 

“Wha-?” You follow his line of sight to the ceiling, where a certain someone is hanging upside down like the most adorable chandelier in existence. “AD?” The dog yips in response, bouncing on his front legs while his back remains firmly stuck. He could do that? How long had he been there exactly?  

AD begins to sniff the air, and warning bell goes off in your head at the same time it does for BP. “Back off, mutt,” he hisses, holding his precious box close to his chest. There’s a blur of white and BP is fleeing into the living room, a yipping AD close behind. “ _Throw him a freaking bone or something_!”  

“ _What_?” Your mind of course jumps to the skeleton in sleeping in your room. 

“The damn biscuits!” BP shouts, the coffee table between him and the dog, until AD phases right through the thing, making BP yelp and make a mad dash for the bedroom hall. You hurry into the kitchen, scrambling for the biscuits as linen closet door slams shut, a scrabbling of claws telling you that AD had temporarily forgotten that he could just—“ _FUCK_ ” there he goes.  

“AD!” You have the box, and go to stand in front of the hall, shaking it so the chicken flavored bone biscuits bounce up and down audibly. AD’s head phases through the door, turning towards you with both ears pointed up, and the dog suddenly jolts out, feet over head, something loud thumping against the door on the other side: “ _Shit_.” 

AD doesn’t take the kick personally, jumping to his feet and rocketing in your direction. He hops around on his back legs impatiently until its open, nearly snapping off your fingers when you offer a treat, and in two gulps it’s gone. 

 _“_ _I will lace those things with poison_ , **_I swear by the_** **_stars_** ,” BP’s muffled shouting comes from the closet, and you take the hint, heading for your bedroom door with a dog treat above your head that AD tracks with both eyes up and all four legs moving. AD darts for the bone after you throw it in, not looking up even when you close the door behind you. There’s movement in the bed, and you curse silently. You forgot G was sleeping there. To be fair it was a surreal experience in of itself and your roommate had nearly committed monster slaughter, but _still_.  

By some miracle of nature G doesn’t wake up, but he’s repositioned himself, laying on his back now with most of his limbs spread eagle, one leg bent slightly. AD bounds over to you for another treat, but you hold off: “I’ll give you them all if you stay quiet.” AD stiffens, and your brow furrows: did he understand you? Carefully kneeling down, he watches you dump the rest of the treats on the ground before he goes in for the kill, even his munching somehow remaining mostly silent.  

“Good boy.” AD wags his tail but doesn’t look up, and you sigh, seeing you were probably on dog-sitting duty until BP left for the theater. Glancing over to the bed, you suppose that you could have it worse…G’s shirt has become slightly raised in his sleep. The bottom half had already been slightly sunken in with nothing to hold it there (skeleton = no stomach), but his belt had kept in place otherwise. It’s no longer tucked in now though, and you can see a flash of bone pressing against your bed: is that his spine? This is both cool to see and oddly appealing, a blush crawling up into your cheeks as you accidentally catch a glimpse of more of G then you had ever seen before.  

 _Holy shit, I’m being such a-._  

Your thoughts stop, your eyes squinting when G starts to twitch. First it’s his fingers, and then even one of his feet give a jolt, but he’s not waking. There’s a strange sound that floats to your ears, something like a rattling, and you’re feeling your heart beginning to pound under your skin. Is he okay?  

AD whimpers curiously form the floor but you don’t turn to look at him, moving quickly to the bed instead and looming over G, not knowing what to do with his hand as he begins to tremble more, his mouth fixed into a frown. “Jah-G?” He doesn’t wake, and you’re starting to panic, sweat beading on your brow. Sitting down next to him, you reach for his shoulders, shaking him gently. “G? G, wake up.” Soft noises escape from his nose, and it’s not AD that’s whimpering now, the sound of it coming from G _and that is not okay at all_. “G? G!” He doesn’t open his eyes, even when you shake him harder. You move your hands to his face, fear flooding your veins with adrenaline. _You just want him to wake up_. “G? G, _please_. _Sans-_!” 

His eyes snap open, two floating discs that flutter rapidly between yellow and blue, his pupils shaking in his head. “ _s-s-s-si-.”_  

“ _I’m here_ ,” you croon, your voice trembling, and fall forward, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and head, his skull burying into your chest as his arms do the same: the need to draw closer coming naturally and without remorse. He’s still shaking, but you keep repeating those two words quietly, like a chant. It takes seconds or hours, you don’t keep track of the time, but slowly the rattling goes away, until he’s hanging on but is otherwise limp.  

“s- _sorry_.” 

“It’s okay,” you try to mummer comfortingly, searching for anything better to say. “Everyone has nightmares…” There had to be something you could say to make him feel better, blinking into the darkness between the pillow, your face, and the crook of his neck. “I had one the other day, we ran out of Famous Amos cookies and BP found out. He had _kittens_.” 

G is silent at first, and you wonder if you missed the mark, but then he’s shaking again, and you fear the worst—until he bursts out laughing, setting a smile a light on your face.  

“Yeah, a whole meowntain of them. It was pretty purr-plexing.” At this point you’re pretty sure G is dying, and you’re pretty happy about it, you’re cheeks aching at the strain you’re putting on them. “Was that raceist?” You can’t help but be genuinely interested, your smile slipping with the flash of concern that echoes through you, but when G’s eyes turn up to you when you back off a little, and you’re pretty sure your remark is what makes them wetter around the edges. 

“you’re _amazing_.” God, that would never get old. 

“D-don’t tell BP,” you stutter, suddenly aware of how close you are to the grinning skeleton. “I’d ma-make a terrible rug.” 

His brow bone raises at this: “at least you have skin. i’d be better suited hanging up in a classroom. “ 

“Nooo,” you laugh sympathetically, unable to help it with the image it brings up and how terrible you feel for reacting that way towards it. “You look fine enough spread out on my bed-.” You brain catches up with your words before you can finish your sentence, but it’s too late. G’s eyes are blown wide, his smile vanishing, and yours has done the same, wilting away as panic starts to grow rapidly in your chest. _Oh shit, oh shit, ohhhh no_. 

The world tilts and _shifts_. 

Air escapes from your lungs, and a pressure traps your arms at your sides.  

You blink, processing the fact that your position has changed, and now G is above you, staring down into your eyes with one lamp light pupil glowing brightly in its socket. The air between you has grown heavy, little hairs are standing up along your skin, especially where his bone fingers are pressing in but not uncomfortably so, and it's the same along your outer thighs, close to where his knees are pushing into the bed.  

Your breath is picking up. It’s warm and growing warmer, that space between the two of you almost physical in nature, it’s so glaringly obvious.  

“G…?” Your voice sounds small, a weak, breathless thing despite all the oxygen you’re pulling in. But his is deep, and rough, “siriu- _omf_.” 

G’s balance is knocked off center, and you yelp, a weight stepping straight into your stomach. You groan quietly, not understanding what’s happening until AD’s claws dig into your skin, bringing everything to focus. G curses, trying to push the dog away, but AD dodges his attempts, bounding to the end of the bed and hunching low, his tail wagging in the air behind him. You sit up, moving your feet away from the dogs swinging tongue. “ADeeee,”you almost whine, your face on _fire_. Were you just cock blocked by a _dog_?  

 _Shit, I did not just think-._ Your eyes snap to the skeleton next to you. G meets your eyes at the same time, looking more harried then you have ever thought you would see the smooth talking skeleton. 

 And that’s what finally gets to you.  

Just like that you’re laughing and you can’t stop. You’re obviously delirious, not to mention tired, hungry, and a _little_ nervous. Okay, _a lot_. There was no way G was going to, _he just wasn’t_ , he was just weirded out by your comment, and was putting a stop to it. That was all! 

 _Can he even kiss me?_  

Your laughter lowers somewhat for a blessed moment at this conundrum, giving you a chance to observe the man beside you. G is half above you, and thank god he’s smiling, _he’s smiling so hard_ , and your stomach is bursting with butterflies, otherwise you’d crawl under your bed and never come out, thank you very much. 

“ _Jones_?” You cover your mouth with both hands, watching as G’s eye shoots to the door and back at you, his smile devious. “ _Did you find the cat comic again_?” 

“cat comic,” G whispers, and you glare half-heartedly up at him, your laughter dying down to giggling.  

“I-I’m okay,” you try to say towards the door, removing your hands temporarily. 

““ _I’m trying to repent for my sins by giving back to the Earth”,”_ BP quotes scornfully from behind the door, and the look on G’s face breaks you, completely ruining your composure. Tears are running from the corners of your eyes, and you can’t do anything but bury your them in your hands to shut out the image of G’s positively baffled but still wide mouth and glimmering gaze.  

It’s the sound of your door opening that shoots your amusement in the foot, and your back cracks when you sit up and rotate to see BP entering, his hand on the knob when his eyes go wide at what he must only imagine he’s seeing. 

“hey, bud,” G snickers, and you’ve never wanted to hit him before, but the urge is very much there and very strong now. BP stares for a solid minute and then snaps the door shut again, vanishing from sight back into the hall. You can hear yourself groaning, but G looks positively wicked, soaking in your pain with obvious glee.  

   
 

“so, you’re goin’ to bp’s play coming up?” 

You lick away the smudge of whipped cream on your lip left from your hot cocoa before replying, the mug warming your hands pleasantly. “Yeah, in a week or so? He wants to introduce me to his boyfriend,” you say, a tad nervous. You’re unsure of what kind of impression you’ll make on Fred, but you hope it’s good. G hums thoughtfully beside you, picking up the bottle of A1 from the counter and giving it a pull.  

After BP had gone you had left your bedroom, taking up at the counter and sitting on the two patched-up stools available while you munched on some cookies. G waved away the offer for snacks, but greedily accepted the steak sauce: he has a weakness for barbecue, you're quickly finding out.  

AD has also disappeared, off to follow BP or bother someone else in the city, as he was want to do. It was a normal thing for him, to come and go like so, oftentimes ending up at the foot of your bed heating up your feet. Hence the reason why you bought the doggie biscuits.  

“It might be because they’re Mates, but he’s the only person BP talks positively about, so he has to be a wonderful person,” you continue, placing aside your then empty mug beside your crumb covered tea plate. 

“word is humans are born with marks on their arms to help find their mates,” G mentions, and your eyes dart up to his face, but his eyes are turned away for the moment, and for all the world the epitome of "cool and collected". “any credit to that?”  

You nibble at your lip, wondering how to say something about this without saying anything particular at all. “Y-yeah, mostly.” 

His eye find yours again, his left brow ridge lifting. “the emergence, you mean.” 

You nod, running your hand over your arm, and up again, trying to pass the motion off as something it wasn’t, like you weren’t hiding Words of your very own under your shirt sleeves. “A lot of people weren’t born with Words. Sometimes people don’t have Mates, because they were never Split, they say. But more than a few were given their’s when you guys came out of the earth.” 

G takes another drink, but his eyes are on you when he asks: “what ‘bout yours. you meet the one?” 

There it is, the question you do, and don’t want to answer, truthfully or otherwise. Your Soul is thrumming to a beat, but you don’t want to take the time to try and listen to what it’s telling you, you already know, and you think you know better than what it has to say. “Yeah,” you try to say almost off hand, and maybe you manage it at first, but then you’re tugging at the ends of your hair, and looking at the counter top instead of him. “We’re friends, sort of. They don’t really know, though. About the Word thing,” you correct yourself. 

“why not?” Your eyes find him again, and he’s really interested, watching you steadily with that bottle in his left hand on the counter.  

“B-because they're cool, you know? I-I’m still getting to know him-them and, and I don’t think they're interested?” 

G chuckles, “how could they not be interested?” 

“I know! It’s apparently a requirement with Mates, or something,” you laugh nervously, rolling your eyes in mock amusement. “Bu-but we’re just so different, and, I’m so…me? I guess?” You don’t know how to explain what you mean by that, but after twenty-two years of living with yourself, it’s hard to give your bundle of awkwardness a proper explanation and still do it justice.  

“more’s the luck for me,” he hums, turning briefly to finish his bottle, and you’re left in confusion until he does. “i get to enjoy your presence even more.”  

You can’t conjure anything to say about this exactly and turn away, hoping against poorly conceived hope that you aren’t blushing right then. “D-d-didn’t,” you start, then stop. Take a breath, and try again. “Didn’t you say you wanted me to meet someone?” 

G taps the bottle with one finger, a clicking sound echoing within it, and distracting you for a moment. Without warning he’s standing up beside your chair, and you turn in your seat, away from the counter.  

“i was meaning to introduce you,” he says, and you think that his voice wavers. “tonight, if possible.” 

You didn’t expect this, but shrug, smiling slightly and standing up from your chair as well. “S-sure.” G snaps his bone fingers and there’s another click in your apartment, the sound of your door’s lock latching shut, and you hum at the impressiveness of something that was probably so small to him. But G’s grin twitches, becoming more real than what it has been since he left his chair. He raises a hand, and you press your palm against it, folding your fingers across his palm, his own fingers bending to hold on in kind. 

   
 

What comes to being around you is the darkening sky above your heads, and a grassy starch of lawn beneath your feet. You glance around, and take in the surrounding buildings, recognizing it dimly as the nicer student housing near the university. These were more long term places to live for students, teachers, and researchers, more like proper apartments then dorms, and you know from your brief look into them that at most each of them have three rooms, but many are one-bedroomed. The grassy area you stand on is near a sidewalk, framed here and there with iron benches and neatly trimmed bushes still green despite the time of year. The complexes themselves are very modern in style, and more than one large window it lit up, some of their thick blinds parted to share glimpse of couches, tables, and even a person or two.  

G holds onto your hand and leads you to one of the buildings, passing under an overhang and onto a porch until you reach a glass set of double doors. There he pulls out a card from his pocket, and swipes it through a pad, the red light on its face switching to green and a chime sounding to let him know the door is unlocked.  

The lobby is empty of people, but lit enough to allow comfort without causing eye strain. There’s a front desk that’s been vacated, a “back in five” note card beside its computer, and G passes it with you, heading towards a silver doored set of elevators. They descend quickly, and you both walk in, G tapping the number five on floor selection pad. 

Neither of you share words immediately, but if you did you might comment on how nice the place is, but G was a researcher, so it’s understandable that he would be settled in such a place. But you also have to wonder why you’re so clearly going to his apartment rather than someone else’s home. Does he and his friend live together? Were they really family, as you assumed? The elevator doors open without you asking either of these questions, and the two of you enter a hallway, the fingers of your free hand fiddling with the ends of your shirt.  

G leads you to one of the few doors on the floor, stopping before it and facing you. “it’s cool,” he says, and reaches out his other hand to take the one he’s not holding onto. “he’ll like you.” 

“A-are you sure?” You ask, uncertain of how G could read you so well.  

“cross my heart, remember,” he says, and your breath stutters. He remembered? 

You swallow, and nod, bracing yourself. G frees your hand, and opens the door wide.  

   
 

The apartment is just as nice as the rest of the building. The living room as it must be has a black cough, metal and glass table, and large television, all of which seem barely used. The lights on the walls sit behind square glass fixtures, dust free, and the floor is a smooth wood. There’s a kitchen on the far side, shiny, metal appliances with black counter tops and counters. There’s a hallway to your right past a short wall with an alcove for shoes, but only two pairs rest there, one a small child’s size, and the other larger, feminine in design. And on the couch sits a monster with long, rabbit-like ears, and a pink button nose, their round cheeks the same color despite the cream colored fur that covers them.  

“G! You’re home early.” They pipe up, standing from the couch, a waving toddler in their arms that appears every bit to be related to them. You’re struck with how pretty the adult monster is, even the green sweater and skirt they wear is cute, and when they turn their eyes on you, you freeze up. “ _Oh_ , who is this?” 

G places a hand between your shoulder blades, bringing your further into the room when your legs can’t think on their own. “sirius jones, meet hollie. hollie, meet sirius,” he introduces, pointing lazily between the two of you, and you note his changed composure, unable to wonder why he’s stiffened up a little but not given the time to do it before Hollie rushes forward to shake your hand.  

“Oh, my goodness, I’ve heard all about you!” 

“You-you have?” You squeak, your eyes darting between their sparkling eyes and the child’s giggling at their parents (?) excitement.  

“Of course! It’s been all the rage, that news about you helping dear little MK out against those bullies,” she says, and then notices that the child is grabbing at the air between you. “What manners do I have? This is little Cinnamon, my little bun just loves meeting new people!” The small monster coos with a grin, and something in you melts, your weakness for fluff squeezing at your heart. Were these the people G was talking about? 

“came by to visit paps,” G says to Hollie, who gasps in excitement. “he been okay?” 

“Of course! Hearty as a horse, as always. His vitals haven’t shown an ounce of worry,” Hollie tells him, your brain grabbing onto the word _vitals_ immediately.  

“cool,” G says simply, and motions to you. You follow after him uncertainly, waving back to the toddler when Hollie takes their hand and waves it for them. G takes you down the hallway with a window at the end, pausing before the last doorway, which is open wide, and you step in after, stopping before you enter fully. 

You know this room.  

You know the bed sitting under the window, the bookshelf with the figurines atop it and the chair that sits waiting next to it. You know the machines flanking it's other side, white, and plastic, one of them with one green line on its screen that goes up and down, shaping mountains.  

You know the decorations plastered on the walls, one a poster with a dancing Mettaton, another with a large black Jolly Roger complete with skull and crossbones. You know the red carpet under your feet, and the desk with a computer near the door.  

And more than anything you know the person laying beneath the bed’s blankets, tall, skeletal, and lost in a sleep he might never wake up from.  

“this is paps,” G is saying, walking over to stand beside the bed, the stiffness in his shoulders from the living room slipping away to nothing. “my little bro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Names:  
> “Undyne” = from “Undine”, elemental creatures of water featured first in alchemical writings. Also, a play off of “Undying”.  
> “Vindici” = formerly “Vindicis”, genitive form of “Vindix” Latin for “protector”, and “avenger”.  
> “Alphys” = “shy pal” and “Alpha” (Alphys is the Royal or Head Scientist).  
> “Flamel” = named for Nicolas Flamel, alchemist who according to legend created the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, a tool that could sustain life indefinitely, and bring back the dead. Alchemists were also known for their interests in chimeras, and elemental creatures like fire salamanders.  
> “Hollie” = inspired by the Holland Lop Bunny  
> 


	10. Of Science and Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I basically listened to the first part of this chapter listening to "pu ert jordin" by Olafur Arnolds on repeat, followed by "And Then You", by Greg Laswell. Listening to the latter, although it started as a Reader/G song in mind, I realized that it works well as representing the tip of the iceberg that are Sans' feelings towards Papyrus instead.

  

Since the fall of the barrier there have been several new constants in your life.   

The writing on your arm, that lazy inscription that wove its way onto your skin as you crawled out of bed that morning, three months ago, with an indescribable longing drawing you to your bedroom window. Later that day you would learn of the innumerable others that did the same as you had. An uncountable number of human Souls filling their mortal shells in the very brim, searching, wanting, as the eyes of their mortal hosts turned singularly in the same direction.   

The second constant Emerged from the earth, the prisoners of the mountain that would reassure humankind anew that they are not alone, something their Souls could never themselves forget. These monsters would discover a uniquely human magic, the power of Words, which would help draw them together, even as old prejudices, ancient fears, would arise to keep them apart.   

The last were the dreams. You had read of them a dozen times, of how the invisible connection between Mates that allow the sharing of emotions, and even memories. The first took time, a nearness in body. When it begins, the strongest of emotions are felt—a sudden swell of anger, an uncontrollable wave of love—bursting, temporary. But as time progresses, even the more subtle of feelings could be shared voluntarily—a brush of contentment, a persuasion of calm. The latter takes vulnerability of the mind, most easily attained while sleeping, and thus in the realm of slumber a person can live the life of another, both their past experiences, and their current.  

Each time G had stepped into his brother's room, his eyes would automatically find his brother. Papyrus, laying still in his bed. Through him you would greet his brother, walking across the room on legs that creaked, hours spent in the same handful of positions, trying to make things right again.   

Automatically G's eye would flit to Papyrus' chest, looking for signs of change in a Soul you could not imagine see with your connection with him. Following that G would walk around the room, or sit at his bedside, telling Papyrus about his day. Sometimes G would eat there, and it was rare, but it brought feelings of nostalgia, as well as bitterness whenever you—G—realized what it was. Sometimes G would visit at odd hours of the day, be it 3 am or 30 til' 12, but Papyrus' bedtime remained the same each night: 11 pm sharp.   

With it G would take the seat next to his brother, and consider the options on his bookshelf, murmuring out loud about what Papyrus might like over another, until he would slide out a children's book, crack it open, and begin to read.   

G is a wonderful story teller.   

He gave each character their own voice, spoke in all the right inflections, and pressed on until the very end. Even if his hands begin to shake. Even if he feels more tired for it at the end. Even though Papyrus never moves.  

  

Your legs almost move until you catch yourself. You want to sit down, to take out a book, and begin to read as you have, as G has, every night since he can remember. But Papyrus' isn't yours, no matter how much your throat threatens to clog up, or your fingers want to tremble.  

“This is your brother,” you ask, your voice nearly cracking. It's a reminder to yourself, but G, standing beside you nods at your question, and you turn back to his sibling. “But you’re so tall!"  

The awe in your voice is real. Small, but once you focus on it, on the truth in your words, you try to make it better known then the other emotions you feel. "I mean, not that G isn’t tall himself, but you must be capable of lifting mountains,” you hear a snicker from over your shoulder but don’t deign to look in G’s direction, the pain in your chest easing at the sound. “I-I’m being rude.," you realize with a blush, and step closer to Papyrus' bedside.  "My name is Sirius Jones, or Siri to my friends. Although, no one but G really calls me that, really. I don’t know if he’s mentioned me at all to you, though.”    

“’course i have,” G laughs, as if this was a ridiculous thing to assume, and he's drawn closer with you, a twinkle in his tired eye. “how can i not tell my little bro about the human that saved mk’s life?”   

“But I didn’t,” you protest, glancing at him with a frown and then back at his brother. Speaking to him is no different than with your own brother, really. Through G you had seen some memories of his brother, a smiling, laughing, disapproving Papyrus. Now that you are actually next to him, the images of him that would fade as you woke each morning came back faintly, and unlike physical pictures that paled in quality with each new copy, Papyrus remains striking even still.  As you could sit next to your brother's photo and imagine how he would respond to what you told him, you could see Papyrus in your minds eye, his mouth turning up in a delighted grin as you go on. “People keep saying that, but I didn’t do anything at all.”   

“then what about you n’ alph, that wasn’t nothin’ by the way she tells it,” G smiles as if he has one up you, and you blink dumbly for a moment.   

“Tha-that was all Undyne. Doctor Alphys was just being nice,” you reply, waving what he said off. Ignoring G’s mock sigh of exasperation, which invokes another blossom of memory of his brother making the very same sound, you notice again the bookshelf by the bed. “I’m so envious of how many books you have.”   

“pft, don’t listen to her, her place is covered in um.”   

“It just looks like I have a lot since they’re all scattered everywhere,” you mutter, sweeping your eyes over the titles on the shelves until one pops out in particular. "Y-you have it?" You have to stand to reach it, but you don't remove it from it's spot when you do.  

G hums in question until you place your fingers along it's spine:  _The Children Who Became Friends._ You know you don't imagine it when you glance at him and he's appearing sheepish. "uh, yeah," he replies, and drops his hand, returning it to his pocket. "when i  asked about your brother's name, i wasn't sure until then that he had co-authored it."  

"Illustrated," you sort of correct him, glancing away with a prick of embarrassment. "He drew all the pictures." It was an old habit, making sure that people knew where credit was due exactly. You were always so proud of your brother's art. But G isn't bothered by it, raising a hand in mock-supplication even as he smiles in amused understanding.   

Smiling yourself, you eyes snag onto another title you know just as well. “Oh, of course," you mutter, taking out one labeled  _Fluffy Bunny_. On the front is a pink fluffy rabbit with a squiggly lined puff of a tail, as well as two dots for eyes. The backdrop is a blue, blue sky, and they sit on the top of a steep green hill.    

“that’s his favorite,” G comments, eyeing the title, and you huff silently.    

“I always liked it, too. Which wasn’t fair. They were so popular, I could never…” you trail off with a shake of your head, sitting down again almost unconsciously. “It is really good though, I understand perfectly,” you shrug to the younger brother, turning in the chair to face him properly and momentarily propping the book open in your lap to re-familiarize yourself with the opening page.   

“paps would probably beg to hear you read,” G says, and you shake your head lightly, although you’re already returning to the first page from where you've wondered from.    

“I’m terrible at it.” But that doesn’t stop you from doing it. You can imagine that you're G instead sitting beside Papyrus'  bed and reciting off line for line in any other story from any other children’s book, nearly every page bright, sunny, and whimsically drawn, with only the occasional sad plot point that always manages to resolve itself in the scant few pages provided. That was one reason why you had tried to write, and why you stopped, life just never resolves itself so easily as it does in story books.  

 

   
 

“Do you think I made a good impression?” 

“the best,” G’s smile is so wide and genuine, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes as much as you wish it would. 

After reading his brother Papyrus the book the two of you left to give him some space, G letting Hollie know that he would be back before popping the two of you to your apartment. Now you’re sitting on the couch, but the television is off and you’re itching with questions. “Hollie seemed really nice.” 

“yeah,” G replies next to you. “she used to live in the same town as us. paps would swing by 'n do some chores for her, or help carry groceries. he never did it for money, just up n’ helped whenever he could,” his voice has grown quieter then it was. “used to say, “a member of the royal guard always helps the people, even if they aren’t in danger”.” 

“That’s really sweet,” you say honestly, imagining the skeleton lifting cats out of trees or picking up couches to vacuum under. The images seemed to fit perfectly in your head from what little you really had learned about him.  

“thanks,” G says without elaborating, and you look at him in question. “for talking to him back there. most people would just treat him like he’s already gone.” It’s there in the air, that question you want to ask but don’t know how to phrase, but G hears it. You know he does when his eye unfocuses, his gaze lost on some memory rewinding in his head, over and over. “back in the underground i had a few jobs here and there, but whenever i had the time, i spent it in the lab. 

“everyone had been looking for a way to bring down the barrier, they never stopped. some thought they could use magic to force it down, to break it or suck the energy from whatever spell was feeding it. others thought they could use science, to analyze what made up the wall and find a way to break it down based off its chemical components.  

“the former royal scientist did both, filling in what science could not explain with magic, and vice versa, mixing the two until he could find some way of creating a method that wouldn’t destroy the barrier, but pull it apart.” He was talking about his father, the man named Gaster that Gerson had spoken of before, but G made no effort to call him by his parental title. His eye refocuses for a moment, and he reaches down, taking up your hand in his long, fine bones. The way he turns it over, examining the end of your pointer finger, it makes you blush unreasonably. “Gaster was interested in the void between individual particles, the space that always exists no matter how closely you try to press two things together,” here he takes a finger from his other hand and presses it’s calcium composed surface against the pad of your index finger, demonstrating something you know you can’t entirely pick out. 

“I’ve read about this,” you begin, knowing you can even begin to know as much about him on the subject but trying anyways. “That we're all just a big collection of atoms rather than a solid mass, and that o-on some microscopic level we’re not actually touching, but our brains are reacting to EM fields.” You’d learned about it while reading some of your brother’s old science magazines in college, the strangeness of it causing it to stick to your memory. After Alphys had told you about G’s research, you had done some digging, and stumbled onto it again. 

“exactly,” G says, his smile returning genuinely with your explanation. “particles are kinda attracted or repulsed by one another; electrons are turned off by other electrons, but are drawn to protons, and within an atom, they exist as a hazy cloud around a central nucleus,” G goes on. He’s still holding you hand, having not let go during your explanation, and they sit between the two of you on the couch, a small distraction in the face of G’s lecture, but one you're very much aware of. “go smaller and smaller, and you find subatomic particles, and it’s still there. gaster wanted to reach in and press his fingers into the space, and push apart the particles, to create a gap in the barrier. magic and science are much one of the same thing, and as time went on, gaster fell into the science more and more, and exposed himself to the magic that made up it’s being. 

“magic exists in all things, and there are many different types. some you can tap into and use almost naturally, like tori’s fire magic. some you have to think a little more outside the box for, like with gravity, but both take the same amount of work. dip your toes too much, it devours you, and monsters are more so made out of magic then humankind are of water. without it, we turn to dust. 

“gaster plunged head first.” This is the most you’ve ever heard of how Gaster met his demise, but there’s no edge of sadness in G’s voice as one might think when talking about their father. You think maybe you hear regret, or wryness, but you’re only sure that his expression has grown grim again. 

“alph took over his position a few years ago, n’ she worked under him in his old lab, but she didn’t pick up the work as the head researcher for his project. i’d been around when gaster was still there, and i’d done my part. when his work was left behind, i took it myself, thinkin’ that maybe by some off chance we’d figure something out, but i wasn’t gettin’ ahead of myself. 

“paps he…he never really took to it as much as i did. he had dreams of joining the guard, i had spare time. but he’d been exposed enough that he knew about the work and would do what he could. 

" when…when the last kid fell down into the underground, the work didn’t stop.” 

“The human ambassador?” You’ve heard of them, but never seen their face on television or the internet. It was as if their identity had been kept a secret, and you imagined almost perfectly why that was. More than once you had heard shockingly horrifying comments from adults about how “unthinkable” the human child's actions had been to free such “horrors” from the Underground. What sort of kid would be able to lead a life without harassment or questions from other humans in the wake of the Emergence when people thought like that?  

“yeah, they’re a good kid,” G says honestly, chuckling at a memory. “paps took a quick shine and someone asked me to look out for them while they were down there. whenever they were sleepin’ or otherwise okay, i’d go back to the lab. if anything happened, i could zip back to make sure they were okay.” 

“You looked after them, even after...?” You really weren’t surprised, given G’s generally kind nature, and that of monsters' in general, but after the war, how could someone not hold some sort of resentment towards your kind.  

“they were just a kid. had been read all the same books paps had. n’ i couldn't go back on my word with the old lady,” he says with a shrug, not noticing you questioning silently who this “old lady” was as he goes on. “it was interesting what gaster did, but there was always somethin' missing from his work. that one final step he took that he said was the end all, be all.  

“when the human had almost reached the king, paps was desperate to find something to work with, n’ so was i. we’d gotten attached to the kid and….there had to be something we missed, or hadn’t seen yet.  

“then, one day we found it.” his voice drops low, any trace of a smile or amusement long gone, and something uncomfortable settles in your gut. “there was an….explosion. a release of energy i couldn’t control. gaster had grabbed it, taken hold of it until it devoured him, but i couldn’t even come close. the brunt of it hit me,” here he reaches up and taps his skull, the jagged cracks standing out more than ever. “paps got the aftershock. we were knocked out. alph told me that they swarmed the lab, tried to help while not being exposed to whatever we—i’d unleashed. they got us out, used every ounce of healing magic they could muster, but healing is rarely ever needed in the underground. people might scuffle, but they don’t fight, not like they did when a human fell, not since the war. this was big, n’ they didn’t have gaster around as an example on how to fix it. they did what they could. 

“i woke up. paps didn’t.” 

“But he has to,” you say before you can stop the words but G is turning his face towards you. Up until recently you had never known that part of what you had been feeling had been his own emotions, but you recognize as clear as day the guilt that sits heavy in your chest, and your try to push through it that helplessness that it brings. “Once upon a time monsters were just something we told stories about, but then the barrier fell and humans learned that they weren’t alone. Magic was a dream and anyone who believed it was thought to be crazy to do so, but then you guys come along and everything changed. The barrier fell and for the first time in my life I was given my Words when I thought they would never come,” there’s an urgency in your voice that you can hear and you wish he would hear it too, that he would understand and listen. “How could he not wake up? It’s the only thing that makes sense. And he has you, and no one so fantastic would keep someone they loved waiting.” 

G shakes his head, his expression conflicted, and you feel him grow rigid beside you. “you don’t understand. it took the kid—they managed to do what they did but we had to wait years for that. monsters were stuck underground for centuries, and all we had to know the stars by were picture books and some damn gems embedded in the ceiling. paps looked just as hard as anyone else, and now the barriers gone, and im stuck up here and he can’t so much as blink an eye-.” 

“And that’s not your fault,” you interrupt, cutting him off for the first time during the short period that you’ve known each other, but never have you spoken to him this way before, overwhelmed with the need to tell him that he’s wrong.  

“i’m the one who insisted on trying to use gaster’s science-.” 

“Your brother is just as much as an adult as you are. He had every right to make that choice, and you can’t take that fact away from him.” G is staring at you his gaze boring into your face but you keep going, your voice rising but not making any attempt to stop. “You had no control over what happened, you didn’t know what would happen-.” 

“ _and that’s exactly why_ -“ 

“ _There is no way that what you did was wrong_.” You’re both standing and you don’t know when it happened, and he’s so much taller but he doesn’t loom over you but neither does he stand back, his mouth a firm slash as the rest of his face shutters off. But desperation and anger and guilt, so much guilt, rolls under your skin, and almost all of it is coming from him. “You tried to bring down the barrier. You tried to find a way out. Just like Alphys, and everyone else, and nothing about wanting to help your people could be wrong. Maybe if you knew it would hurt others, if it would destroy lives, but you _didn’t_. You wanted to help and so did he.” 

“he was my little brother and i was supposed to protect him!” 

“And you still are,” you argue back, not flinching when he yells, knowing his anger isn’t aimed at you. “You’re still trying. You haven’t left him behind.” Your eyes sting but you ignore them, just as you ignore the way G’s eyes begin to search yours, catching onto something you hope he wouldn’t. If you can feel as he does, doesn’t that mean it’s a two way street? You breathe in deeply, summoning the will to shove away your own sadness, and sighing through your nose: this isn’t about you. “But, but you can’t do that if you let yourself waste away.” 

G’s face shifts a bit, revealing how this has caught him off guard, a not so change of subject that he didn’t expect. “Doctor Alphys told me that you haven’t been eating. Or sleeping. ” He’s starting to understand, you can tell, his expression becoming shuttered once more. “And when you came into work today… _I was really worried_ , _G_.” The guilt surges in your gut again, but there’s something else, something warm and pleasurable that makes you trip over your words. “An-and I, I really want to help you. Deal with that, I mean.” 

G is quiet and you’re worried that you’ve really screwed this up, glancing away and back up again, just wanting to do something with your hands, but then he does something unexpected. He’s still standing before you, but then he moves, ever so slightly, and it seems like he’s so much closer, a tiny change that makes one hell of a difference for you. You’re warm, and nervous, and the entire situation had your heart in a twist, but your Soul is a fuzzy mess when he speaks next. “you wanna help,” his asks, voice low and lilting. He’s still tired, but his eye is fixated on you, unwavering. 

“Y-yeah. I-I mean, it would suck if as soon as he wakes up, you crash from exhaustion,” you laugh, trying to settle your jumpy nerves. “An-and you got a lot of sleep today. My beds always open if you need it!” You smile as wide as you can manage. There’s a beat of silence, and G tilts his skull slightly, finally, finally that mouth of his lifting slowly at one corner. 

And you realize what you’ve said. Your hand flies to your lips, your skin blazing where you touch it, “I-I mean if, if you get tired you could totally—because I was cool with that, that was fine, and your place is kind of farther away maybe from some other places and teleporting makes you tired and I don’t have to be there or anything or we have the couch-.” 

His laughter stops your babbling in its tracks, and you can feel your eyes go wide. As much as you like the sound, it’s perplexing to hear it out of the blue, and you can’t help but know that it’s at your expense. Still you don’t step away when he leans his head down, his skull brushing past your own and G placing his forehead on your shoulder, so his mouth is nearer to your ear when he speaks. “you’re amazing.” 

“Jeh-G,” you both question and complain, flushing with equal parts pleasure and embarrassment. You like that he’s so close, you love the words that he’s saying, you’re not crazy that he’s so amused by your bumbling, but you’re glad for it also, because it made him laugh.  

“sorry i took your bed.” 

Irritation flies up in you, weakened by your already muddled feelings of happiness and helplessness. “No more apologizing!” 

“what’ll you do if i don’t,” his head tilts when he says this, his breath brushing the skin on your neck, and you shiver, although not uncomfortably. You want him to keep speaking, just like that. 

“I-I-I’ll go to your house.” 

“yeah?” 

“And I’ll go inside your room.” 

“mmm?” he hums through his nose, hot against your flesh. 

“And I’ll, I’ll-.” Are you sweating? You're definitely sweating. 

“what’ll you do, sirius?” _Holy shit._  

“I’ll hide all of your pants!” 

Maybe for the rest of your life you’ll wonder about that moment, you’ll continue to question and question until the day you die: was there ever a time when you were more mortified then you were then?  

Probably not. 

But his deafening laughter makes it worth it. 

 

“Can I see him again? If…if he wouldn’t mind?” 

“he’d like that.” 

“A-and you’re going to bed, right? When you get home?” 

“maybe after a few tests…” 

“G!” 

“heh, yeah. i’ll go to bed.” 

“Promise?” 

“cross my heart.” 

“That…that doesn’t count if you don’t have a heart, you know.” 

“cross your heart, then.” 

“It doesn’t work like that, it has to be yours.” 

“not if you lend it to me.” 

“It’s...kind of a mess.” 

“i like it.” 

You have to tell yourself to breathe, even if you can’t tell yourself to stop blushing to save your life. “Okay,” you begin to try at being exasperated, but the attempt falters, and falls to pieces. G reaches forward, and brushes his finger over your chest running it across your heart, first once in one direction, and once more in the other.  

“i promise.” 

The feeling of his touch remains even after goodbyes are said and he vanishes, and you don’t want to reach up to rub it away. You’re lighter than air but your body is heavy as you make your way to your bedroom, as if you spent all your time crying that day but feel freer for it. When you close your bedroom door you see it resting on your desk chair, and cross your bedroom floor to pick up his jacket in your hands.  

Smoke doesn’t cling to it, and you’re again moved by his selflessness, but it smells like something that must be him: rich, and deep in flavor. You don’t know how someone outwardly composed of bone could smell, but it makes your eyelids heavier. You leave it alone long enough to change out of what you’re wearing, but take it with you to bed, heat in your cheeks when you indulge in this, but not an ounce of the reluctance you feel is enough to stop you. 

   
 

The following week is nothing short of wonderful for you, or, at least considerably better than any of the ones you had lived before.  

Every day you find yourself waking up early to work but you can’t find yourself disliking it, which is a feat in itself. But you’re actually going to a job that your thoroughly enjoy, with a boss that was by far the best you would probably ever have, and hours that never seemed to stretch on for too long. Gerson had a wealth of knowledge about the Underground and even the world before the war, so you were never short on new, fascinating things to discover, and even when the topic strayed to work itself, the subject matter was just as well. Even if you didn’t entirely grasp the scientific aspect behind mining for geodes, comparing their ages to the rock beds around them, and what not, they were gorgeous to behold, and they always came with a history of their very own that was always interesting to learn about.  

But far the only nerve wracking part of your job was that you often met new people, greeting customers at a counter not something you were really used to, but with them came familiar faces as well. Not only did Alphys and Undyne keep up their visits, but others soon followed. 

The strange length and width of the shop door made sense when G.D. walked in the store one early afternoon with a very excited BP, barely having to shrink his great shoulders to pass through.  

“Jones, holy shit,” BP exclaimed, bouncing up to the counter in a way that already had you smiling: “What’s going on, BP?” 

“Okay, okay, you know how I told you that our show sold out,” he starts, gesturing towards G.D., whose tail wags in obvious happiness. “And you know I’ve been thinkin’ about having a few more nights to show it, but I wasn’t sure if it’d really sell out that well, you know? Just ‘cause we got lucky the first time, doesn’t it’ll work out again,” he fails his arms for emphasis, and you get what he means, BP hardly full of self-confidence with how things often went for him. ”But I was talkin’ to Fred and the others and we thought, what the hell? We’ll give it a shot, maybe one, maybe two shows. And, Jones, hell, Jones.”  

“What? _What_?” You’re leaning into the counter hoping he’s saying what you think he’s saying, and dimly aware that you’re eyes have begun to sting from the nicotine clinging to his favorite hoodie.  

“We’re sold out!” He bursts. “Again! Every night for two weeks!” 

“BP!”  

His harried attitude radiating joy rather than exasperation for once, and you circle around the counter swiftly to pull yourself into his hug: allergies be damned you were happy for your friend. “Jones!” 

“BP-oh!” G.D.’s arms circled around the two of you, lifting you clear off the floor as the monster-dog barked, and just as you realized that this was happening another yipping sound came from below you, your head tilting down to see a much smaller dog with their tongue lolling out as they cling to G.D.’s leg.  

When BP begins to complain about the pressure on his ribcage G.D. places you both mercifully down, the smaller dog backing off on their back feet and wagging their tail much like G.D. is.  

“Oh, hey, you probably haven’t met the little guy here,” BP says helpfully, still all smiles despite the crack in his back that had sounded while in G.D.’s arms. “I think I mentioned him once, but Lesser Dog is playing Moth.”  

L.D. barks in welcome, and you smile in turn, remembering a conversation you had with G ages ago over the phone. “You’re L.D.?” 

The shop bell chimes from behind your small group, and everyone turns around, both dogs wiggling in greeting when steps into the show G pulling his hood down from his face. Huh, so that pressure on your chest wasn’t just due to being made into a human tomato in a monster sandwich. “G,” you say his name automatically, your lips curling up involuntarily, your Soul buzzing when he stands at your side.  

“siri,” he mummers, smiling softly himself and his eye darts over the others in the room, an _oh no_ sounding in your head when he notices L.D. “plannin’ a late night rendezvous,” he dares to ask in a drawl, barely breaking composure when he has to dodge your kick to his leg.  

“We need to give you two space,” BP asks, provoking a blush from you while G remains as a cool as a cucumber. 

“N-no, he’s just here-,” you say, smacking at G’s arm as his hand falls down from tugging at the back of your hair, “-for lunch.” 

“Riiiight,” BP says doubtfully, but then shrugs, his grin returning. “Party at Grillby’s after the first gig, you got that Jones?” He says, following the dogs out the front door, and calling behind him as he goes: “Three more days!” 

You’re laughing when G turns to you, “coat?” Giving a nod you dart behind the front counter, walking to the back room and hesitating when you see the coat you’ve brought to work that day on the table where you sometimes took tea with Gerson. You’d nearly overslept that morning, falling asleep in the middle of the night with your phone by your ear and unaware that you’re charger had slowly been working its way loose from the wall until you woke to a dead cell and no alarm. Your own coat had been nowhere to be found, and barely thinking about it you grabbed G’s, which he had yet to take back.  

You’d done the totally non-creepy thing the next morning after talking to him and told him about it being left behind, but G had texted something back unexpected, stating that you could keep it and he had another laying around. 

The one he mentioned is larger, reaching his hip bones, with white oval patches on the side, but otherwise looks mostly the same. It was what he had worn every time you had seen him after that, and what he now wore in the shop as he waited for you in the front. Had he left in behind rather than the one you know had, you would be more swamped with material, the black jacket that you hesitated over now with its sleeve that covered your hands whenever you wore it. 

And you wore it. Inside your apartment, and mostly whenever you were in your room since after the first time BP saw it, he heckled you about it for hours. But still, you wore it whenever he was gone and you alone, before bed, sometimes to bed to be frankly honest.  

But that wasn’t too weird. _Was it_ , you ask yourself, finally pulling it on, albeit stiffly. As if G might just know _, somehow_ , and thus suddenly feel the need to propel you from his life, forever. But when you reenter the front room, saying a shaky, “Ready,” he doesn’t frown when he sees you.  

He actually does the opposite, his eyes sharpening even as his smile widens, G walking up to you when you’re around the counter and zipping his old coat closed. You can’t help the feeling of thrill you have at his closeness, swallowing roughly with the way he’s staring into your eyes. “let’s split.” 

You’re sure to close the shop’s sign around so it reads _Away for Lunch_ , and follow him out the door, locking it shut for the hour you were due to be out. G could have very well popped you over to where you were going for lunch, the same sandwich shop that Gerson had fallen in love with recently, but the walk there with him is much more preferable. You don’t have a lot of time outside the shop to eat, but although you knew Gerson wouldn’t mind you bringing your leftovers back to the shop to eat, any time you have to spend next to G is enough, and you wanted to stretch it out for as long as you could manage. Plus you’d told G not to ever worry about teleporting for your sake after the other night, not wanting to make the already worn down skeleton even more tired. 

As you walk to the shop you can’t help but notice and be pleased by the fact that he’s gotten a little better recently. You’d been by his house to read to Papyrus at least one other time, and although G was still heavily into his work, he wasn’t being as neglectful about his own health. It humbled you that he would actually take your words to heart, but you understand maybe more than others why he would be so desperate to get his brother back on his feet.  

That desperation was something you often felt in snatches, as well as with other things G felt.  

When you were apart, as the books you read warned, the greater the emotion the more likely his half of your Soul would share it. When he wasn’t with you, sometimes they would come, spikes of frustration that made you clench your hands closed, clouds of longing that caused you to curl into yourself and covet the feeling like a stubborn grudge, thinking: _I wish, I wish, I wish._ But they weren’t all negative, so to speak. Sometimes there was amusement, sudden and bright, such as when you shared a joke over the phone, lingering softly afterwards.  

The slighter emotions, more constant, and yet more subtle, were easier to pick up on when you were closer together, but they were also the ones you were the most confused about. How often did you confuse your own sentiments of contentment with his? How often did you project, imagining that he must feel the same way, when really you were just hoping he did?  

The books you picked up again told you that it would be easier to pick up on these as time passed the more time you spent together, and eventually distance would become less of an issue. Others stated that you would begin to share physical normalities also: not just tiredness from defeat or lingering anguish or guilt, but from simply not sleeping enough or running a great deal without stopping.  

Of course with the realization that this was all actually happening you had felt guilt about it. G had dropped nothing by way of a hint to show that he even _knew_ that you were Soul Mates, at least none that you could honestly pick up on, and nothing about that made you feel good about the fact that he was probably sharing your feelings as well.  

Just the other day you had been staying up later than normal that damn Sarah McLachlan commercial had popped up on your television, risen from the dead like an unwanted bigoted grandmother. Maybe it was due to how tired you felt, or the conflicted emotions you had about having a Mate in G, but either way the sight of the watery eyed puppies destined for their apparent certain death had made you cry for a solid minute. And you hadn’t gotten better right away. By the time BP had come home you were a sobbing mess, you roommate having a minor panic attack as to what the hell to do with you.  

You were exhausted the next day, feeling spent like a water bottle that had toppled over, gushing great gulps of water until nothing was left but mere dregs of emotion. Then G had texted you good morning, and you tentatively replied, equal parts gratefulness and relief overtaking you with the natural warmth that built up just from talking to him. 

Since then you try to wrangle in any abrupt change in emotion on your end, carefully contacting G whenever you think it might be coming from him instead.  

Jokes are a safe neutral ground, and you're getting better at telling them. Mentions of Papyrus are more fragile, but his brother is the also the easiest topic to get G to really talk about at great length, as you found yourself listening to today when as you sit eating together. 

“paps wanted to join the guard so bad he made his own armor, his “battle body” he called it,” G was saying, a warm fondness in his eyes as he looked across the shop, seeing no one that was actually there. He's leaning back in his chair with one arm hooked over it’s right corner, and for the rest of the world he was a picture of perfect ease. But you say the way his other hand on the table was crumpling his napkins into a tight knot with his fingers, the only sign besides the tension thrumming in your Soul that he wasn’t entirely okay. “first version was made up of a couple of basketballs and some cardboard, but he was pretty good at making stuff from scratch,” he said, turning away from the restaurant and glancing down at the tray between the two of you: G had managed a couple of bites of his roast beef, but it was the tall cup of barbecue sauce next to it that he had managed to swallow down the most of. You’d preferred that he eat it all, but that he had managed as much as he did was reassuring enough for you to not fret over it: after all, any worry you felt might double back to him, and you wanted him relaxed.  

“’ventually he incorporated some steel, and the scarf he paired with it he sewed himself. i pointed out that it wouldn’t do a lotta good against any pointy objects, but paps said any good hero needs a bit of flair to stand out.” 

G falls silent at this, his seemingly natural quiet catching up with him. If there's anything that G talks at great lengths about it's his brother first, and his work second. You try not to let the two come hand in hand in a conversation, but it's really difficult considering that all of his current efforts are focused on his brother, and even with your efforts, it probably doesn't stop G’s thoughts from probably trailing right to it, too. 

That tension in your Soul could snap, or unwind. You were always afraid of when it would break, G’s emotions rolling out and destroying him, rather than softening until his shoulders loosened. You’d seen something of the first instance when you were together in your living room, but somehow, _somehow_ it had calmed.  

Maybe it is important that G experience a bit of both, but whatever the case, you wanted to be there to help whenever it happened, just as you had said that night.  

“From what you’ve told me, I can’t imagine that didn’t come naturally to him, though,” you say, aware that your hand has begun reaching towards him, and stopping it from doing as you so wished to, instead reaching with pinched fingers through the hole in his hand to take hold a bit of the napkin. You still aren’t sure if you are pushing some sort of invisible boundary, you were reaching through his hand after all, but G just watched you with a slight smile on his face. Because of thoughts of his brother, or what you were doing, you couldn’t tell. 

“got that right. paps always went on about how great he was, but unlike some people he was right, even if it wasn’t exactly how he intended,” he continues, and you continue what you’re doing also, G’s hold on the napkin loosening as you pull it by one it’s corners through his hand. As self-conscious as you are about what you’re doing, you’re also almost captivated by it. Half of you had expected some sort of…force field or something when you pushed your fingers through the hole in his palm, and there is some sort of….pressure, as if the air is thickening or you're inserting your digits in pudding or something. “he made people smile so easily, even if he made himself the butt of a joke. meanwhile, i blended in a lot easier.” 

You hum briefly in doubt. Sure G was quiet, but you couldn’t be the only one who gravitated towards him so easily. When you first met him, he just seemed so naturally easy going, and most days if it weren’t for the signals your Soul was sending to you, you could try really hard to believe that's exactly the case. Still, Mateship or not, you feel like you're still on the pinnacle of the iceberg that was G: there's just still so much to discover about the man.  

However he thinks about himself, you find him to be pretty distracting.  

G’s eye flits up from your hand as this thought passes through your head, and when his smile tugs upwards you stiffen: did you say that out loud? Did that honestly just happen? You thought that only happened in movies or something!  

Ignorant to your infighting, or quiet possibly altogether knowledgeable about it and thus soaking it up like a sponge, G’s other arm comes around his chair and joins his other in being propped up on the table. He lifts your hand up in the one that had been holding the napkin, the tattered remnants of it falling to the table. With both of his hands holding yours, you can see your skin through the holes in his palms, four of your fingers skimming the back of his right thumb bone loosely, while your pinky is caught between his thumb and forefinger.  

Your eyes dance over the hold he has on you, darting up to his face when he speaks gently into the air between you: “the feeling’s mutual.”    
 

 

You had to tell him. There was no way around it. You couldn't keep being G's friend while hanging onto a secret like that. And maybe he wouldn't mind? Maybe after what time you had spent together it would be so much easier, and maybe it would work out the way that people always said it did? 

It wasn't like you were two people in a movie separated by class or duty, there was literally nothing stopping you from confessing save for your own fears. 

You would do it, you told yourself as you walked back with him to the shop. You would do it right now. Right now. Right at this moment. 

"penny for your thoughts?" Go's voice shocked you out of your inner battle and you looked up to see him watching you, a copper coin from the sidewalk between his phalangies. You laugh lightly, more due to your upset nerves then his use of the old human saying, but take the coin as he offers it. It's cold between your fingers, he hasn't been holding it for long. 

"G..." 

"siri." 

"I um..." 

"yeah?" He almost looks amused, but holds back, maybe catching onto how you're trembling under his coat not just because of the cold weather. 

"Wouldyougototheshowwithme?" What? That wasn't what you had meant to ask! You're utterly exasperated with yourself, and you feel even worse when G begins to frown, his amusement giving away to apologetic reluctance.  

"i...actually have plans for that night," he says, and your disappointment fluctuates to curiosity when you begin to think that he expects you to be angry with him with the way he doesn't meet your eyes. "hollie thought she noticed a change in pap's vitals recently, 'n i wanted to retry a few things to see if brings about a belated response." 

"That's wonderful news!" G almost jolts on his feet, obviously unprepared for your response, but why would he not be!? "I mean, any kind of difference in how he's been, or how he looks, it has to mean something, right?" You're so excited, you're practically vibrating in your shoes, and at last G's smile is returning.  

"right. paps' situation has been pretty stagnant since he went under," he admits, although his shoulders as well as his grin stiffens somewhat. "it could mean something worse than what we're hopin' for, and since paps is the only subject we have on hand, we can't make any comparisons to past data unless it's his own. but, it could also be something i could work with." 

"I really hope so," you remark honestly if  somewhat wistfully, clasping your hands together and thinking about it. Sure you had been hoping to see G at BP's show with everyone else. But that was just the thing. A great deal of monsterkind and more then a few humans were scheduled to attend, and with them all of the people that you had met alongside G—Frisk, Toriel, Alphys, Undyne....everyone but Papyrus. Papyrus had never even seen the Surface, let alone attended a play, or taken a walk in a park, or had just breathed the open air. To know that he's stuck in that bed of his, while everyone else is living life...you didn't need to have a connection with G to know that it must be hard on him.  

"I would like to meet Papyrus," you say, meeting G's eyes with utter sincerity. "Properly, I mean. I think I understand to some extent why you would want to do everything you can to help him." 

G sighs through his nose, but his slight smile doesn’t waver. "you would, wouldn't you?" And you know that he means your brother, Aludra, long out of reach from where you could ever possibly hope to take him back. But if you could have him back, if there was anything you could do...You shake your head, dislodging the melancholy the thought naturally started to bring about. 

"We'll spend some time together another day," you say, and you think G looks more at ease now then when you had first asked your question. "I can read to him again, if that's okay." G makes a sound, something between a laugh and an exhaled sigh, and steps closer with closed eyes. You stand still, not knowing what he's doing until he leans down, pressing his forehead against your own. His close proximity completely obliterates any lingering chill in the air, and you find that you can't blink, you can hardly breathe.  

"thank you, starlight," G says, opening his eyes to half mast, and you see that his other pupil has made an appearance, glowing softly blue as the other continues to shine yellow. Your enraptured by the sight, but that doesn't stop you from marveling at despite the fact that he's taller than you, if you were to press forward just enough, and stand on your toes, you could press your lips to that tired, toothy grin of his. 

G leaves you there staring, an empty space before you where he once was. He's just....gone. You blink a few times, processing what has just happened before you notice that more than one person has passed you with looks of concern, and that it's still the middle of winter.  

Shaking yourself out of your stupor, you turn around and enter the shop, a familiar sound of the brass bell over the door sounding. What you notice right away is that Gerson is walking down the aisle in the opposite direction of you, and you hear clearly what he has to say when you do: "Might want to wipe that smile off yourself before I start to feel concerned," the old man says, cackling as your hands fly up to your face to feel for what he could possibly be talking about. You're smiling alright, and the funny looks outside finally make sense.  

"Oh, _jeez_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, the uh, "cat comic" mentioned briefly in the last chapter is right here: http://treacherousthoughts.tumblr.com/post/100435222136  
> I nearly died the first time I read it. I...I really don't know why.  
> 


	11. Of Magic and Theater

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for how late this is! I meant to post it late Friday, early Saturday, but like last week, I found myself exhausted with an annoying migraine. I hope you enjoy it, and happy holidays to everyone!

The outermost wall of the Curled Banner Theater is aglow, the snow banks that line the street running before it shining under the polished brass scones of the large entryway. Thirty minutes before the play is set to begin, you find yourself pressed between Alphys and Undyne, following the long line of show goers waiting to see the premier of your roommate's beloved play.  

BP himself had left home that morning to prepare, no amount of time in his eyes spent getting ready a waste of time in his eyes, and you had seen him off, waving sleepily from your apartment door as he fled down the apartment hall. You had never seen BP so excited to very well do anything before, that is if excited meant down right terrified.  

"What if the stage burns down! What if Bottom forgets their lines! Bottom can't forget his lines! He's one of the best parts! What if _I_  forget my lines?" This last sentence BP says with stark fear written all over his face, and if fur could suddenly go white with panic, his would have right then you imagine. He had been  literally shedding with nerves, pacing back and forth from your living room to the bedroom hallway until four in the morning—two hours before he was due at the theater to start a pre-rehearsal.  

"BP, BP you'll do wonderfully," you tried to console him from your spot on your shared couch. Following around would have done no good, he had already been paranoid about "the ghost of Mettaton" breathing down his neck from his own psyche.  

"Wonderfully? Wonderfully!" He darted over to where you sat, his clawed hands inches from your face. Even his whiskers appeared crooked with how on edge he was. "The king might show up! The king! I sent those tickets out as a joke, Jones! How could wonderful be good enough for a king!" He grabbed his face, smooshing his eyes closed and walking away. You could hear the wail of agony under his breath as he paced away, honest concern rolling in your gut at the sound. It was then you caught sight of the notes left on the coffee table. They were kind of hard to miss, what with copies of the actors' lines all over the house really, but seeing these immediately you had scooped them up in a fit of inspiration.  

" _How now, my love! W_ _hy is your cheek so pale_? _How chance the roses there do fade so fast,_ " you asked in a rush, standing up from the couch. From behind his hands BP automatically spoke up in response: " _Belike_ _for want of rain, which I could_ _well._ _Beteem_ _them from the tempest of my eyes_." 

Tossing aside the script you picked up another at random, reading as you did so: " _Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius."_  

" _I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus,"_ BP replies, and at last he began to remove his face from his hands, his troubled eyes clearing when he turned towards you.  

" _O, wilt though darling leave me? Do not so_ _!_ " 

" _Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go_ ," he insisted, drawing closer to the couch.  

Again you dropped the script and picked up another, reading with barely a thought save for a stutter at the beginning when you notice how long the part you picked was: " _I_ _see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me-_ " 

" _-to fright me, if they could_ ," BP interrupts, picking up and continuing without a single pause in his delivery. " _But I will not stir_ _from this place, do what they can_ ," he said, moving around the couch, and taking a step onto a cuion, his other foot followed swiftly after. " _I will walk up_ _and_ _down here, and I will sing,"_ at that point he had one foot on the back of the couch, and his hands were raised, his expression enraptured with righteous anger _._ _"that they shall hear_ _I am not afraid!"_  

Not skipping a beat BP dropped from the back of the couch, jumping to the other side with grace. "You're right, Jones, I'm being absurd," he said in a huff, leaning over the couch and brushing a kiss against your cheek before taking off for his bedroom, tossing a goodnight over his shoulder. His door slammed behind him, and you were left stunned on the couch, by both his actions and you're own—that had worked? 

You checked on him before going to bed twenty minutes later and were greeted with the sight of his form curled under his blankets, lawn mower-esque snoring letting you know that he was definitely down for the count.  

Hours later at it's 5:32 according to your phone, and Undyne is bouncing on her feet, peering over the heads of the monsters in front of you. "C'mon, c'mon! I wanna see the action!" 

Of course Undyne is excited to see some bloodletting, and you don't know how to let her down, since a majority of the play is a romantic comedy, emphasis on the comedy, even with the presence of swords.  

"I-is it true that there's going to be a four way love triangle between the main protagonists," Alphys asks from your other side, her eyes shining from the overhang lightning. She's wearing a pink coat with a fur trimmed hood, little cat shaped knots dangling from it's draw strings, as well as a pair of gray sweats over her boots. Frankly with her blushing excitement, she looks adorable.  

"Something like that. Hermia loves Lysander, but she's arranged to be wed to Demetrius? And there's Helena, who adores Lysander," you reply, by some miracle you think getting all of the different names correct. Only reading over the play again and again with and for BP could have hammered them into your skull so well. Maybe you should have tried out yourself, you wonder, until the thought of having to stand in front of all of those people makes you shiver.  _No, no thanks._  

 _"_ Shit sounds intense _,"_ Alphys' girlfriend's mouth spreads wide, revealing a toothy smile.  

Undyne's blue scales are shining along with her hair, long, red, and hanging in a high ponytail on her head while a long glossy fringe of it is draped before her one unusable eye. With her leather coat and eye patch, even the ear muffs she wears over her fins to keep them warm appear roughishly stylish.  

The sight of her teeth just make her cooler, and again you have to wonder how you managed to land a couple of friends like them. 

"You buying," a voice chirps in front of you, and you're brought to attention. Behind the round glass of the ticket booth sits a pair of monsters, one a purple furred cat with long lashes and a pierced ear, and an alligator with blonde locks and eye liner more on point then you could ever hope to be capable of.  

"One for me and my girl," Undyne shoves forward, slapping down some cash on the counter, and the cat pokes out a paw to take it until their friend interrupts them, dropping the nail filer they have been using on their claws.  

"Oh, my, gosh, Catty! That's the captain of the Royal Guard!" 

Catty gasps dramatically, her money filled hand flying up to her mouth with her other unoccupied paw. "Oh my gosh, Bratty! You're right!" Undyne's grin has dropped to a confused scowl but the girls aren't paying attention, turning to each other and giggling into their hands. "The Captain of the Guard and the King in one place! It's, like, a royal entourage!"  

"I know, Catty! This is, like, amazing!"  

"Asgore's here!" Both girls at your side pipe up, but while Undyne's all smiles Alphys is jittering in her boots, her eyes shifting from left to right as if their massive hulking lord could be hiding behind one of the skinny decorative trees planted along the sidewalk.  

"You didn't know," Catty gasps. 

"He arrived a whole hour ago," Bratty declares.  

"Holy shit, babe," Undyne exclaims. "I've got to catch him!" Alphys squeaks as her girlfriend darts away, rushing towards the entrance and disappearing inside. 

"Tickets!" You turn your head just as Catty pushes a couple of slips of paper under the glass, and you're quick to take them, stuttering a thank you before handing Alphys her share of Undyne's purchase. When you return your hands to your pocket, you fiddle with your two tickets. You had never given the spare away on the off chance that G would change his mind. Not that you hoped he would. Not entirely.  

The thought of G sitting in his lab working away to help his brother has recently brought you more hope than apprehension. Alphys has told you that she's caught him eating more, if not by a large margin, then at least by a noticeable amount. And if Papyrus was really showing signs of possibly getting better, or if there was new data being presented that could help towards that goal, then how could you not be happy?  

Since G had told you about Hollie's discovery, your dreams had been filled to the brim with images of a snowy landscape, of an astoundingly tall Papyrus angling his skull down to grin in your direction. To scoff. To preen. His brother is definitely on G's mind, of that you have no doubt.  

 _If Papyrus wakes up soon, he could make it to one of the showings_ , you muse silently. If not soon, then perhaps another. BP has big plans for the future, nights filled with swordplay and stories where normal people are made into heroes.  _He'll love it._  

Unlike Undyne, you and Alphys take your time entering the theater, filing in behind the other excited patrons. Inside is a foyer with a bar and several tables where a few people are standing up from to make their way to the main room. Framing the left and right of the archway leading to the theater are two sets of stairs, sloping downwards from the second floor, and you guess that they lead to the balconies for private seating.  

Already you're beginning to moved by the vintage grandeur of the building, but it really hits you when you enter the heart of the theater.  

Spread out before you in a gentle decline is a row after row of chairs, the velvet red seating frayed at the edges with age, but showing signs of having recently been vacuumed and cleaned. The carpet is thin beneath your feet, and matches the color scheme of the room as it runs from the back of the theater all the way to the edges of the stage. The stage itself is gold in color, it's wooden surface polished to a shine, and it's the same shade of yellow that's stitched into the red banners that hang along the rooms great round walls. Balconies hang from the sides, the banners placed in such a way that there is one between each private seat, but the view of the stage is not obstructed in the least bit. The ceiling itself is vaulted, a flaking mural framing it that depicts angels in motion, playing instruments of all sorts, wearing costumes, and otherwise laying among flowers of various shades of red, violet, and pink. The scone lights are turned down low, giving the room a warm, almost sleepy atmosphere. Lastly is the great red curtains that cut off the main room from the remainder of the stage, a thick fabric  that swathes of light dance along each time some unknown figure behind jostles it.  

A faint smell of spaghetti and musk tickles your nose, reminding you of late nights spent on the couch with BP joking about the news. It removes some of the tension in your shoulders that has built up from being surrounded by a crowd in a new place, and when Alphys pats your arm to get your attention, you smile at her in question with ease. 

"There's Asgore," she says, and points to the second balcony from the stage on the right. A figure has appeared from behind a corner, and at once you feel your chest seize up with awareness. The camera really did not do him justice, King Dreemurr is positively massive! From beside him a familiar red head appears, and Undyne's six feet is dwarfed in comparison to the King at her side. But she's all smiles, acting no different then she did with Gerson when she would visit the shop on a normal day, if not more so you think, your eyes widening when she goes so far as to punch the King on his arm. But King Asgore smiles apologetically, rubbing his arm with a lean in his stance as if he's been genuinely wounded, and even with the distance between the two of you, you can tell he's being scolded for something.  

"The king and Undyne are very close," Alphys says when she sees your expression. "Gerson wasn't the only one t-to teach her how to fight, Asgore was the first." 

"Holy cow," you mutter at the very thought, in awe to begin with that you were in the same room as royalty, let alone that you had been spending time with someone who personally knew the king, and on such an intimate level. Sure you knew Undyne was the former head of the Royal Guard, that Alphys was the ex-Head Scientist, and those facts alone were something you were still getting used to—really, when would you ever? But you saw them so often that you just didn't...think about it? You ate lunch with them, talked about dumb things like who in what anime loved who, and even shared goodnights. That they worked for someone as prestigious as a king... it was strangely easy to let slip your mind. 

But the King's presence here in the room is a glaring reminder. Undyne makes a waving motion and you realize that she's pointing in yours and Alphys' direction. The King turns his snout just as Alphys eaves back, a flush of red on her yellow cheeks that piques your curiosity: surely the king's scientist and the king knew each other better then you could assume? You're fidgeting under the King's stare, an inclination of his letting him know that he had seen the two of you, but then his expression shifts, his smile dropping away in an instant, and you turn your head just as Toriel is making her way down the aisle in your direction.  

"Ms. Toriel," you greet her, at once feeling better in her presence. Maybe there's something magical going on, but you just can't yourself. Ever since the two of you had shared your separate stories of loss, Toriel was just really easy to be comfortable around, second only to BP, and G. 

"Good evening, Sirius," she says warmly, and then inclines her head towards Alphys in much the way that Asgore had before. "Alphys." 

"G-good evening, your majesty," Alphys manages to reply, appearing even more uncomfortable. It was odd, but up until then it struck you that you had not seen Alphys and the queen alone together. To say that the atmosphere was a little strained would be a bit of an understatement.  

"Sirius," Toriel speaks up again, and you decide to put that thought off till later: it was just one more piece in the puzzle that you would have to learn in good time. "I understand that Burgerpants is the head of this production, he must be at wits end!" 

You laugh at her exclamation, "You could say that."  

The three of you talk as you find seats. Well, you and Toriel trade words, but Alphys says nothing, and you sit between the two of them, feeling somewhat like a buffer. From Toriel's right a large wolf with pupiless eyes and wearing a knit sweater over their dark fur sniffs the air as the three of you sit, turning his nose slightly and then stiffening. Their discomfort only increases when Toriel turns her head and greets them kindly. _If wolves can blush_ , you think with a near laugh at their apprehension.  _I feel you, dude_ _._  

The wolf is revealed to be Heinrich Wulf, formerly in charge of keeping the great Core of the Underground cool, and who nods to Alphys from beside Toriel. Alphys' work on up-keeping the Core had exposed her to several key members concerned with the Core's continued functionality, but you can't help but notice that Toriel is now one that appears slightly uncomfortable. Fortunately for her just as Undyne sits next to Alphys, the room darkens, and BP walks across the stage just as a spotlight hits his glittering figure. 

The sight of him positively takes your breath away. Playing the part of the Lord of Fairies, Oberon, BP wears a crown of fall leaves woven along his skull, a pair of hand carved antlers seeming to have sprouted from between his ears. His vest is high collared, and white, but open at the throat with golden buttons, and it reaches just below his hips. The pants he wears are a dark brown, his boots entirely toe and soleless, revealing his bare orange feet. On his shoulders there rests a large green cloak, leaves caught in it's silk as if BP had just finished walking through a forest. It may be the work of magic, literal, theater, or a mix of both, but there are vines peeking out from beneath the collar of his shirt and his sleeves.  

The King of Fairies is nothing short of elegant and yet also indifferent in speech, but the way he holds himself, as casual as it first appears, and the way his fangs glow in the lightning, gives away the predatory grace of the fae before you.  

Oberon's, no, BP's welcoming speech is greeted by a wave of applause, the audience already thrumming with excitement for what is to come.  

And the excitement never fades. 

As Hermia is ordered by her father to marry Demetrius, least he sentence her to death or a place his daughter in a nunnery, everyone is on the edge of their seats. When Puck, played by a blue-furred rabbit, mistakenly uses a love potion on the wrong people, thus making Lysander fall in love with Helena, people laugh at his foolishness.  

The cast is positively stellar in their performances, not only in dress, but in the way they deliver their lines so very well. If there are any slip ups, you never notice, enraptured by the sight of monsters on the stage playing the part of fae, it's like a story book come to life.  

But monsters aren't the only ones in attendance or playing on stage, as you see Frisk playing the part of one of the court fairies, alongside MK, LD, and a small, child like monster with pointed ears, a red face, and black, star like eyes. The four of them play the part of Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Moth, and Cobweb respectively, each dressed differently to represent a different season. You don't know if this was apart of  the original play, but you think the idea simply inspired, and the sight of Frisk dressed in spring flowers and a fluttering dress positively melts your heart.

By the time the curtain falls and the actors come out to take a bow, the crowd gives a roar of applause in a standing ovation.  

 _This is their first, isn't it?_ The first play that they've seen on the surface in years, the first one done by a monster cast, free from the depths of the Underground. It's impossible to remove yourself from the happiness of the atmosphere, the sheer relief, not just from the cast after a job very well done, but for being able to be at there at all. This is history being made, and you're apart of it. 

 

" _Jones!_ " 

" _BP!_ "  

BP comes crashing into your arms in the center of the aisle, effectively causing the bouquet in his arm to sputter petals all your smooshed hug, and when BP draws away, to pretend not to notice the wetness of his eyes. "Holy shit, Jones, we did it!" 

"You were magnificent," you beam, earning just the same from your friend: "I was, wasn't I? Hear that, Mettaton, you can take your MTT Brand and shove it," he shouts, practically jumping onto your shoulder as he pumps a fist into the air, his cape a flutter around him.  

" _My_ , it's been some time since I've heard that level of honesty." 

Just like that BP's mood positively crumbles, and he still has a hand on your shoulder when he turns, his need for support entirely different from the hurrah he was giving a moment before.  

Behind him wearing a furred coat cinched tight with a belt, and a Russian style winter hat on his gossamer, black hair, Mettaton stands, a quirk in his mouth as he smiles in red lipped amusement. "How's my little king?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was shorter then the others, but I've decided maybe to try making them shorter from now on? Quality over quantity, as they say!  
> Thank you for reading! I hope you guys are having a wonderful holiday season!!!


	12. Of Exaltation and Rage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The number of responses that you all gave for the last chapter was positively wonderful! I owe you all so much for your continued attention to my story, I really, truly do!

Maybe you're having difficulties registering the fact that Mettaton stands mere feet away from you right away, but the crowd of monsters is way ahead of you. Previously to this instance you had thought that the celebration was solely directed at the completion of the play, and now you see that people are jostling to get closer to the star of the Underground, a hiss from your roommate to your right telling you that this hasn't escaped BP's notice.  

" _Mettaton_."  

"Now dear, I see that spark in your eyes, and I'm going to have to stop you right there," the robot-diva speaks, not at all bothered by the calls of the monsters for his attention. If anything he hardly seems to notice—no, he knows about it alright, he's wearing it like his very own cloak of leaves, a garment he's settled into with an otherworldly comfort and grace. Unlike in human crowds on the red carpet there seems to be no need for a boundary between Mettaton and the crowd, they stand around him at a polite distance, while still vying for his attention.  

"I received my invitation in the mail like so many others, and came just to see my little starlet make his debut on the stage." 

"The anonymous VIP," BP breathes out, the mystery solved.  

In order to get into the balcony boxes you either had to require the seating for a special reason, such as a need for the extra space due to something such as body size since some of the monsters are too big for normal seating, or it was because you had donated a charitable amount of money for the event in general. King Asgore probably filled the position for both of those requirements, considering his special status, his wealth, and, frankly, his large girth.  

Another thing about the tickets was that you could buy them anonymously. BP and the others had been reluctant about this at first, but it made it easier for humans who wanted to see the play to not be discovered by someone they knew and thus be outed for it.  

BP is surprised that Mettaton is here at all because he had simply never known that his old boss had bought a ticket.  

 _Mettaton was sitting in a box during the play the entire time and BP never knew._ You can't help the sound you make in the back of your throat, betraying the natural irritation that rises up in you while in the presence of someone your best friend has confided in you about for so long.  

This doesn't escape Mettaton's notice for a second, and for the first time his uncovered fuchsia colored eye lands on you. It's quick and subtle, but Mettaton takes you in with a glance that has BP's grip on your shoulder tightening.  

"And there you are, Sirius Jones," he says. In one smooth movement he steps forward and takes your hand in his, lifting it to his lips to brush a kiss along the back of your knuckles. "We meet at last," Mettaton continues and finally let's go, leaving a lingering feeling on your skin that you have to resist the urge to rub away. "I've heard all about you from my friends in the monster world. You've been taking good care of my dear employee since I've been gone, haven't you?"  

For a fraction of a second you think you hear the warning in his voice, but the chance to examine that is dashed when BP steps before you, stopping just to where he's almost in front of your person. 

It's an odd sight, seeing someone dressed as a king moving to protect you, but that's just what BP is right now. With his back held as straight as a clean knife cut, and his eyes as sharp as flint, he's not only himself, but Oberon, the ethereal lord in command of the most dangerous and deceptive creatures thought imaginable.  

"As much as I enjoy seeing familiar faces in new locations, and introducing my closest friend to people I had the good luck to know Underground, it's growing late," Burgerpants drawls coolly, the canines in his mouth showing when he smiles. "I appreciate the charitable donation that you've granted our production, and hope that you enjoyed the show, but I really must attend to the attention of the people I legitimately care about. Good evening."  

With that BP turns his back to his former employer, Mettaton's eyes widening in the slightest of motions before BP loops an arm with yours and escorts you away. From behind you people are quick to fill in the gap left behind, and you can hear the mutterings of the show goers all around you. 

 _Mettaton! Mettaton is here!_  

 _Did you see that? I could feel my Soul_ _trembling_ _, that_ _was scary!_  

 _It was just like in that MTT movie-!_  

BP nods and waves to the crowd as you walk, petals from the bouquet and curled slivers of dead leaves following behind in his wake. 

Neither of you say anything until BP stops, a familiar form appearing in the crowd and standing out despite their size as everyone parts for Frisk so they can make their way through uninterrupted. BP lets go of your arm and leaves the bouquet with you, falling to his knees with an exclamation: "Little buddy!" 

Frisk leaps into his open arms, pure delight written on the child's features as the Oberon scoops Peaseblossom up into the air. It's like a flip has been switched, any trace of BP's bridled wrath falling away in the instant that he set his eyes on Frisk, and he looks into their face as he holds them, removing the crown of leaves from his head with little difficulty and placing in on the kid's brow. 

BP laughs when Frisk tilts their head haughtily, the facade disappearing when they give into the shared amusement.  

The crowd parts again when someone much larger appears, monsters stepping aside respectfully and the few humans in attendance nearby gawking as Toriel steps up next to you. "BP." 

It's now that BP's confidence falters, the orange monster blinking owlishly and giving a half-bow of his own, the only thing he can manage with Frisk giggling in his arms. "Your majesty."  

"Oh, never mind that," Toriel waves off the formality, but not unkindly. If anything this causes BP to become more flustered, and he glances at you at the corner of his eyes. "I want to congratulate you on a wonderful job well done. I haven't viewed a wonderful rendition of the play since William's showing of the original work!" 

BP's makes a noise in his throat that immediately makes you worried that he's choking in his tongue, but then he's bowing again, once, twice, much to Frisk's absolute glee. "Th-thank you, your majes--queen—Mrs. Toriel. Thank you!" 

"Now that's talent! Not everyone has the skill to leave my boyfriend so clumsy!" 

The actor for Puck has appeared, climbing over the row until he's sitting on the arm of an empty theater seat at the innermost end of the aisle, the toes of his blue furred feet touching the ground as he sits with his hands placed between his tight wearing legs.  

Wait--boyfriend? 

"Frederick," BP practically begs, his boyfriend and Soul mate chortling with unabashed amusement in response. BP sighs, running his hand across his face until it reappears, tired, but softer than normal, this hint of vulnerability for Frederick and Frederick alone.  

"Your majesty, you look radiant as always," Frederick says to the queen, causing her to behind a raised paw. You can't help but understand her reaction, Frederick's compliment backed by nothing but sincerity.  

" _Oh_ , Frederick. I said enough with the formalities." 

"Think nothing of status your majesty, for all gentle Souls that grace the world with such poise are to be called queens, and deserving of such respect." 

Holy shit, that was smooth.  

"Speaking of respect," Frederick continues, and he's on his feet, crossing the distance between you in a blink of an eye and wrapping his arms around your shoulders. You squeak at the sudden proximity, hints of chocolate chip mint and cold, if cold has a smell, gracing your nose. Frederick backs off with his hands on your arms, his eyes shining bright when he speaks: "You, you! Sirius Jones I owe you the world and more! Your honest friendship with the love of my life and the happiness that you have brought upon him fills my Soul with the utmost gratitude. Should all in the land realize their mistakes and act as you do, life would be better for it, but I no more worthy to be in your presence!" 

You can hear BP chuckle from beside you when you stand in slack jawed awe at Frederick's admission, Frisk's joined in snickering at last releasing you from the spell and allowing you to shake your head.  

"I-I'd s-say you're welcome, maybe, b-but I didn't do anything really!" 

"But you did do something, and you did everything right," Frederick shakes his head gently, his mouth set in an earnest grin still. "You've been a wonderful friend, and what more could anyone hope for?" He punctuates this with another hug, releasing you after and leaving you baffled.  

 

"Hiya, punk!" An arm takes you behind and Undyne's weight settles on your shoulders with her half-hug, her teeth inches from your face as you laugh at her greeting. "Thought we lost you!" 

"Where's Doctor Alphys," you ask, noticing that the yellow monster isn't by her girlfriend's side in the foyer.  

Undyne scoffs, her good mood slipping with her arm as she removes it from your shoulders. "Off talking to the toaster." She hooks a thumb behind the two of you. Lo and behold Alphys is standing next to Mettaton, her cheeks aglow as she frets with the close proximity of some of the remaining public, while Mettaton can hardly be bothered.  

"Saw you and the fairy king talking up a storm with that scrap heap back in the theater," she says, her grin turning mischievous. "What was all that about?" 

"I-I didn’t really say anything," you reply, but this doesn’t deter her interests. "You know Mettaton was BP's old boss? He's been trying to contact BP for months now, but BP understandably doesn’t want to have anything to do with him." 

" _Pah_ , I can imagine. Working for that stuck up bot doesn’t sound like it has any upsides." 

"That's the thing," you go on, aware of the frown you're wearing, a sight that makes Undyne's smile widen further. "Mettaton promised BP lessons while he worked under him at the resort, but all he ever did was bully and degrade him! As soon as BP reached the surface, he decided to cut ties, and he had no idea that Mettaton was going to be here tonight." 

Undyne groans, rolling her eyes. "Ah, shit. Alphy's program." 

"What," you say, not seeing what she means right away. 

"Look, you know about that anonymous thing with the tickets," she asks, and you nod, unaware that she had any knowledge of it. " _Well_ , Alphys was asked to make this computer program to sort through them to make sure none of those guests were here for all the wrong reasons. Obviously, Alphys had to be the one to know who the tickets belonged to." 

"She knew Mettaton was coming," you conclude, and Undyne jerks a reluctant nod. 

"Hey, Alph didn't know a thing about what's going on between your roommate and that drama queen. So if the fairy king asks, it wasn't her fault," Undyne insists, clearly upset with the entire situation, but you nod. 

"Of course! D-doctor Alphys hardly seems like the type to do anything like that." 

"Yeah, but cat-by over there doesn’t know that," she nods in BP's direction. He's near the entrance with Frederick and Frisk, several of the cast members loitering around with the remaining audience before they head to the after party at Grillby's. 

"I understand, Undyne, I'll let him know if he says anything, I promise," you reassure her honestly, and Undyne nods again, relaxing.  

"Knew I could count on you, punk," she says, brightening again and hooking her arm back over your shoulders. "Now let's go to the party!" Her shout is echoed by a few of the cast, and with that the two of you join in on heading out of the building. 

 

The party is already well underway at Grillby's, the number of guests at least double the size of the number of patrons that had been in attendance the last time you were there. Shortly after arriving BP and the remaining case is greeted in a round of applause, spittle flying from Endogeny's face orifice as they vibrate in excitement.  

You'd had the good fortune to meet Endogeny properly on the way there, and with it came their happy reunion with Alphys. 

Alphys always kept a close eye on the Amalgamates, feeling personally responsible for their well being since, well, they were formed, but it wasn't often that she was able to see them in person. She was stiff at first when Endogeny nearly bowled her over in greeting outside of the theater, but soon gave into the pups' lovable charm.  

As you watched the exchange you couldn't help but be amazed by the sight of the monsters, wondering what sort of trick of the eye, or trick of magic, allowed the images of dogs to exist lolling their tongues from between Endogeny's legs, but you were not left alone to gawk for long. Endogeny approached you with the typical friendly caution of a dog towards a stranger, throwing it to the wind with a sudden jolt of their shoulders, followed by the same treatment that Alphys had received. Endogeny is odd, there's no doubt about that in your human mind, but your mortal weakness has no room for bias when it comes to dogs after all, and you love them instantly.  

Endogeny trots over to the other dog-monsters in attendance at the bar, a chorus of barks joining the hubbub of the warmly lit bar that smells the same as it did the night you and G sat down together to eat for the first time.  

At the thought of him you turn your smile at BP's show of confidence on one of the tables, a sweep of his arms and a kingly bow that has Grillby striding over from across the room, and check your phone. 

(8:40) Bad to the Bone 

 _have a great night?_  

(8:45) xxx-xxxx 

 _I did! It was wonderful!_ _BP is_ _ecstatic_ _by how it turned out_  

(8:46) Bad to the Bone 

 _yeah h_ _eard from_ _alph_ _that his_ _performance_ _was a real_ _show_ _stopper_  

(8:47) xxx-xxxx 

 _You're off your game, G. How is Papyrus?_  

(8:40) Bad to the Bone 

 _you wound me, starlight._  

 _ill_ _tell you everything_  

Your reading of the remainder of the text is cut off when you hear an audible gasp close by, and glance up instinctively, half-expecting to see that BP has fallen off the table when instead you see someone else. Standing nearby is a living embodiment of flame, but unlike Grillby, they flicker a deep emerald. They're also shorter, and wearing a sparkling, red dress, but this isn't what catches you off guard. 

It's the sight of their hands raised to their face as they meet your eyes, deep, green droplets beading at the corner of their glowing eyes when they speak. Their astonished whisper still reaches you, even with the sea of joy and congratulations all around you, and it halts your breath in your chest. 

_"Mei?"_

The amount of emotion in that one word nearly makes you stagger, sure that they must be meaning to speak to someone else.  "I-I'm sorry, but have we met?"

The fire elemental lowers her hands and opens her mouth

"Fuku."

Both of your heads turn to see Grillby in his bartender's attire standing at your sides, his sun-spot eyes set on his daughter, who dips her chin.

"Of course," she says, puzzling you further, but it's not explained as she goes on. "It's my fault, you remind me of someone I once knew," she says this to you, the gentile way she speaks bringing a flush to your cheeks, as if you're the one that made the mistake in the first place.

"N-no, it's okay. It's, it's a common--normal enough mistake to make," you try to say as calmly as you can muster, a large part of you stuck on the idea that there's something about this situation that you aren't seeing. 

Distracted as you are by this you aren't ready when a weight staggers against your side, and you have barely enough time to startle when GD's massive tongue finds it's way across your face. More because of surprise then disgust, you almost yelp, pushing off any further advances from the slobbering monster dog with a near-giggle escaping from your lips.

Fuku's hands fly up to her mouth once more, and you watch dumbly with your hands in GD's fur as she stutters an apology and nearly hurries away. Grillby turns his chin in your direction, his fire unreadable to you, and then follows after his daughter at a calmer pace.

_What was that?_

 

GD doesn't back off from trying to earn your attention and you give in, following him over to the table of his kin where they're playing their customary game of cards. 

When you arrive they all raise their snouts to sniff the air. More or less GD introduces you to the gang that G has mentioned before, which includes Dogamy and Dogaressa, whom are married, LD, Endogeny, and the infamous Doggo. You think your lucky stars that G isn't there to tease you about this.

At some point the couple gets in their minds that you're a really odd and defenseless puppy, insisting that you take up a seat between them while they play and wagging their tails when you give into patting them both under their ears. Meanwhile Endogeny lays in a half-moon around the crowded table of monsters plus one, utterly content to vibrate in welcome whenever someone paid them any mind or drew too close, but otherwise lazying about.

It's fascinating watching the dogs play. Dogamy and Dogaressa you learn while watching seem to primarily see by way of smell, giving a thoughtful twitch of their noses whenever they had to make a play. Doggo is different in that in order to be aware that he's not alone, he mostly relies on what he can hear, only certain really that someone is still where they were a moment before when they finally make a move. The other dogs help him out by wagging their tails, shifting in their chairs, or lolling a tongue, but you have to make do with swaying in your chair gently, very much reminded of being a kid again. 

The remainder of the party is just as loud as when you first walked in, if not more so, and more then one person stops by to say hello. BP, Frederick, and the cast are in the limelight tonight, but that doesn't stop your best friend from wandering on over.

"Eesh, Jones, you pick up a nasty habit," he asks jokingly, nodding towards the game, but actually patting the primary head of his fellow cast member when Endogeny stirs. 

"Don't look at me! I'm just-"

If it weren't for the scream that follows you would have assumed that someone had dropped a glass, but when you and BP whip your heads around to the front of the bar it's made clear that this isn't the case. The ambiance of the room has shifted to mixed emotions of fear and surprise, monsters backing away from the front of the bar where the winter air of the outside world is now flooding in through a shattered window. 

A muddled range of questions remain but the voices in the bar mostly dim as ears strain to pick up a hum coming through the window, and with a sudden chill down your spine you recognize the chanting of a crowd.

"Back away from the door," Undyne calls from somewhere inside, and monsters hastily comply, moving further into the bar and away from the entrance as they begin speaking, some already in a panic.

GD jumps from his chair near you, nearly toppling the stool, and LD reacts the same, following after his companion towards the front of the bar with the remaining royal guardsmen. 

"Jones," BP mutters from beside you, and you feel his hand reach out to take yours, you slipping from your stool and falling along with his steps in the direction of where he left Frederick last.

The bodies around you are jittering with energy but remain mostly in place as you move, stopping only when BP reaches his Soul Mate's side. Frederick takes his hand without looking, the previously jolly long eared monster frowning, and you don't like it. 

The door at the front is opened with a harsh bang against the brick wall as Undyne and the guard walk outside, a thought occurring to you that causes you to search around: "Alphys!" 

"H-here," the doctor pipes up, and soon after her shorter form is allowed over to where you stand, wringing her hands in terror as her own Soul Mate steps outside. 

"Are they-."

"H-humans, protesters," she answers, shifting from foot to foot when she can't get a clear view of the front. "T-they knew about the play."

" _Shit_ ," BP curses vehemently. "I didn't think they'd show up."

"You knew they were coming," you ask unsteadily, the situation catching up with you as raw fear for your friends forms a black mass in your gut.

"They sent a damn warning letter weeks ago," he admits, huffing but none the less guilty for it when you flinch. "I didn't say anything because, well, look? Who in their right damn mind would take on the largest gathering to date of monsters since we left the damn mountain," he asks, with a wave. When you don't say anything he sighs. "Yeah, humans, stupid, I know." 

You swallow, your mouth turning dry. Peering around you notice the few other humans in the bar. There aren't many, but it's _something_ , and already you can tell that someone has the same idea that you do, because one or two are already making their way to the front of the room. 

"They're human, BP."

"Yeah, I know that-Jones?" He isn't ready when you pull at his hand and it gives you the chance to break free, your roommate calling out when you walk shakily towards the front of the store. "Jones, what are you doing!"

Grillby is hanging out by the door and shifts his head slightly when you arrive. You would think that the bartender is as stoic as normal if not for the clinched fists at his sides, his back set as he stands ready to defend his patrons should the guards happen to fall. He reaches out when you prepare to leave with the others, placing a hand on your shoulder briefly.

"Be careful," his voice rumbles, warns. _Run if you have to,_ remains unsaid, but it's there.

 

Outside it's mayhem, a stark contrast to the once-peaceful atmosphere of the bar. 

The humans are there en masse as Alphys said they would be, a stunningly large body of individuals presenting a scene ripped straight out of a film from the 30's. Rather then pitchforks a few have sticks, crowbars, and other random melee weapons. By some miracle you don't spot an obvious firearm, but you see the signs, signs that say things like "GO BACK TO THE MOUNTAIN!" or some random bible verse taken entirely out of context. Despite the cold and their obvious need for heavy clothing, leaving them as red faced by the elements as they are by their own anger, they don't look like they plan on leaving any time soon. But what really makes your heart shudder is what they shout, a rolling chant of "Down in the ground!" 

It's hardly poetic, but it gets it's point across, mixing in their disdain for the monsters ever having left the mountain, and the threat of the people willing to kill them if they chose not to return.

" _Fuck_ ," someone utters near you, and you see another one of your own kind, standing out on your side of the line with a bright orange beanie topping their head. They meet your eyes, a choked breath coming forth from them when they see they aren't alone, and there are others. Those you saw from the bar standing around behind the line of royal guard monsters, uncertain as to what to do exactly. 

"Shit, Jones, what are you doing out here?" Undyne stalks up to you from the line, already waving a hand back to the bar. "Get the hell back inside!"

"U-Undyne-!"

Whatever response you can't think to give is crushed under the additional swell of rage from the crowd, earning another explicative from Undyne. They're getting closer,  causing the dogs to take a few steps back towards the guard. If anything it tightens their ranks, but it makes the human crowd more confident when the dogs do nothing to immediately stop them.

_If they try they could hurt someone. If they hurt a human it could start a war._

"Jones-," Undyne tries again, but you shake her off the same way you did BP, facing the beanie-wearing human near you, and you both move almost in sync. You don't look to see if the other humans from the bar are doing the same, but you're soon near the line of guard dogs, the gaps between them great enough that you can fit in between GD and Doggo with ease. 

You think you hear GD whimper, but your attention is caught on those in front of you, other members of the human race.

All sorts are there. Tall, short, old, and young. Various nationalities even. _Prejudice is a world wide concept_ , something snarks from inside you, but you can't laugh about it. Not when your'e this close. Not when you're mere feet away from the snarling, vicious faces of your own kind. It's disgusting. It's infuriating. It's sad.

The space between the guard and the protesters grows smaller, and smaller. You can almost smell the breath of the one closest to you, someone that could be a parent, with the knitted scarf they have around their neck and the Christmas tree's dangling from their ears. But you can't leave. Maybe it's the fear that keeps you rooted, but you don't move, even as your breath whistles between your teeth in quick bursts. 

Then it happens.

The person draws too close, and GD growls down at them.

The human balks, yelping when their hate-fueled confidence falters. But it's not them you should be concerned with. 

Its the one next to them that shoves in beside them, wearing the black gloves and the black coat. The one in the jeans and the wide chin, who pulls something glistening, heavy, and metal from their half turned back. 

But you don't have the time to yell in warning or scream, because the gun goes off in quick bursts, and GD makes a new sound, _that's so so_   _wrong_   _god no GD!_

Undyne shouts from down the line and you fall to the monster's side, scrabbling to find where the bullets hit, to cover up the blood low that you don't yet see. Undyne is _roaring_  and the crowd is settling back at last but you don't care, reaching for the spot that GD grabs at below his rib cage while his legs scrabble almost uselessly in the ruined snow. 

" _GD, GD, GD,"_ you whisper his name frantically, wanting to say that he needs to stop, that you need to see, but you manage to get nothing else out as you find the hem of his shirt and pull it up the wide expanse of his stomach. It snags beneath the press of his back against the ground, but enough gives away that the place is revealed--several places you discover, as GD moves his paws against his fur, panting harshly. You try to help, seeing nothing but white until something brushes against the bare skin of your hand. 

You pull away, not knowing what to expect when it's so dry, but it clings and stands out against your palm, gray and fine, drifting away with the gentle wind. 

_Dust._

It comes again, spattering loudly in your ears, and you crouch instinctively against GD's chest to cover him, unable to complain when his great arm attempts to shroud you instead. 

But nothing comes. No pain. No heat. No agony. No shouts or screaming either, no chant of malice or roar of dissonance. 

GD protests when you raise your head carefully, a gasp catching in your throat at what you see.

The crowd has moved back, and between them and you is a series of black _things_ hanging suspended in the air, glowing as bright and blue as fairy lights in a forest. 

Bullets, those are bullets in the air. Caught and stopped midway on their path in your direction, and everyone is shocked to silence, a silence so great that when he speaks, you can't help but hear him.

"the snow is falling."

You turn your head, the soft beat of boots on concrete meeting your ears. 

"the stars are shining."

He's wearing dark slim jeans, his hands shoved in his thick coat pockets, and his stance is incredibly causal despite the glaring yellow light in his skull that makes you shiver against the ground. 

"on a nice night like this, people like you. well," G considers with a drawl, like he's having a conversation with anyone, but it isn't only your Soul that's erupting with a red hot fury, it's in the set of his mouth too, his grin set wide and lilting, stretched from one side of his white skull to the next, yet crooked where the crack is set deep into the bottom of his left eye socket, the shadows of the night sinking in and into it's partner, joining with the void inside his head.

" **s h o u l d b e b u r n i n g i n h e l l**."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Dark, Darker, Yet Darker Still](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LWjzWFpzQY) plays faintly in the distance.
> 
> Holy cow, did I have fun with this chapter.  
> Writing Frederick was especially entertaining, because I did not expect him to turn out the way that he did.  
> Did you know that Wells Enterprise was founded by Fred H. Wells Jr., and that they're company created Blue Bunny Ice Cream, my favorite brand of that world famous frozen treat?  
> When it finally hit me that the Nice Cream Guy was in fact a Blue Bunny that sold ice cream, I was ecstatic. Honestly, though, it took me until I beat the game to notice, a full year after it's release.  
> As for G's bit at the end, the moment I thought of it I nearly burst with excitement. Not terribly original, but maaaaan.
> 
> I'll see you all Saturday, and even sooner for a new chapter of UTM! Have a nice remainder of nice remainder of the week!


	13. Of Victory and Resistence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by the version of Gaster's theme "Dark, Darker, Yet Darker", by The Great Anansi on YouTube, as well as Olafur Arnald's "Everything Must Change", and "Somnus" from the Final Fantasy XV soundtrack.

The shells drop, scattering with the snow, and striking the asphalt in distinctive  _tangs_  of metal.  

And the screaming begins.  

The crowd of hate mongers came to the bar in order to raise hell, to frighten, to hurt, probably even to silence. But apparently some of them never got the memo that guns would be involved, and the sight of the very shots fired being caught in mid-air triggers a panic.  

Had Siri's fingers not been tangled in GD's fur, searching a means of stimming his gradual degradation, she perhaps would have laughed. One, two, three. Rage, bafflement, fear absolute, and like that the dauntless numbers were scattering to the wind. They left behind their signs, their pitiful weapons, and even a shoe was lost. But not all of them ran. Where there had been perhaps twenty or thirty, Siri's own fear possibly warping the numbers to be less in the favor of the monsters, others remained.  

"you okay, siri," G asks without turning, and your eyes dart the side of his skull.  

"GD's hurt!" 

"shame," he mutters, and you have a distinct feeling that he's being sarcastic, but you know it's not aimed at you. It's directed at the first offender, the human-in-black that shot GD before your very eyes.  

One second their standing on the road clutching their semi-automatic, and the next G is removing his left hand from his pocket, and they're being lifted into the air. They start to yell, unable to comprehend what's happening, until G curls his hand inward, and the gun collapses in on itself, taking the person's hands with it. The yelling becomes more frantic, but G doesn't bat an eye. Instead he flicks his hand in a dismissive gesture, and the person is _flung_  through the air.  

They hit the rear bumper of a car parked parallel along the road, the vehicle screeching in alarm.  

One would think after this show of power the remaining attackers would flee. But their fear propels them forward, their fight of flight response falling to the favor of attacking head on. Two come yelling towards G, one from the front, the other from his right side. The first is aiming their gun, but the opposite opps out of fire power, scooping up a dropped pipe from the road that has been left behind. 

G's left hand goes up, and the first goes with the motion, tossed into the air just as the second reaches G. When he swings, so does G. His right hand horizontal in the air, lying flat, almost like a chopping motion. But his hand is hardly tense, his fingers loosely splayed, and you watch as the second attacker swings it very much like a bat until it moves parallel to G's arm. The pipe never makes contact. Like two asymptote lines on an x-axis, G's arm and the weapon never meet, the pipe _curves,_ physically bending in the air, the attacker still moving through space. They don't even have time to shift their expression in realization before G's left arm swipes down, and his right hand meets the other in an almost clap. Like marionettes on a string, the two humans move through the air, the first slamming down to meet the road, and the other being pulled in front of G, colliding with their friend.  

G leaves them in a motionless heap on the road. 

There is a fourth across the street, crouched slightly over with something in their hand. You see a spark, followed by a flame, and you're trying to shout in warning to G just as they toss the homemade molotov.  

It arcs, and G moves from his spot for the first time since the fight began, falling to a knee directly next to you rather than a foot off to your right. He raises his arm with his right hand in a clawed motion, fingers pointing up, and the street moves with him.  

The molotov fails to reach you, but rather cracks against the barrier of asphalt that comes ripping from the ground, a makeshift shield large enough to block and disperse the energy of the blast, but G's slim window of time causing him to press close to you. His blazing yellow eye light eliminates any shadow that the barrier may have cast, his single pupil locking onto your eyes, but then he's moving again. 

He raises himself, and the street is spread back across the ground. Not exactly as it was, and bits are still torn asunder, left where they lie, but urgency does not beget perfection in this case. The person who tossed the molotov finally understands what's at stake, and switches to _flight,_ but  G is quick to find them again.  

The person slips, pulled by an invisible tether, and is being dragged across the ground, their hands scrabbling for purchase they cannot find in order to fight their movement towards G. You're engrossed in what's happened, so much so that if it weren't for the fifth's yelling, it may have been too late.  

They're heading towards G from behind, wielding a  _sign_  of all things, but you find yourself pivoting in place away from GD and jumping up from the ground. You think long enough to scoop up an errant chunk of street from the road, the torn edges digging into your palm, and they're almost behind G when you strike.  

Much like the person with the pipe, you swing, but with your weapon cupped in one hand. Your own yell causes them to pause, to turn, to hesitate just long enough for the rock to make contact with the side of their face.  

They crumple, the sign dropping with them, and the rock in your hand hitting the ground shortly after. G peers over his shoulder slightly, still holding onto the molotov-bomber with his right hand when he grips the air behind him with his left. The person you managed to fell moves, not by their own accord, but by G's power, and they join the bomber in the heap with the others .  

The bomber is still conscious, babbling now in their attempt to escape from where they've been dumped. They begin to scramble from the three-person pile up when G raises his hands.  

Figures garbed in black you haven't even noticed during the scuffle meet their friends in the street. One is torn away from a choke hold of Undyne's. Another is ripped off your beanie wearing ally, and another, down for the count, slides across the sidewalk from the front of the bar.  

It's a mass of dark clothed, human bodies that G brings together before him, his hands mirror images of one another, his fingers likes bent claws, and you think G is merely restraining him until the earth opens up.  

Not the earth, but a rip in space, a deep void in the ground in the middle of the road. It's wide, ominous, and familiar. It's the in-between, the darkness you glimpsed once when an exhausted G took you home previously, and you dared to keep your eyes open.  

The group of humans move, and they're dropped into the void, the black closing shut like a trap immediately after. There's not a trace of it left behind--one moment the tear in space is there, and next it's gone, the humans gone with it.  

Distinctly you're aware of sirens approaching, their ill timing is something that will be considered later to have come disturbingly late. But that's the future, and right now you're returning to GD's side. It scares you that he's so still, but when you strain your ears you hear the low whine under his voice, pathetic and heart wrenching.  

Somewhere nearby Undyne starts barking orders: Dogamy and Dogaressa split up, checking the perimeter for anyone that might be hiding in wait. LD goes inside to check on the bar, but not before he sends a reluctant glance towards his fallen comrade. Undyne marches over to you, dropping to GD's other side with the trident in her hand dissipating into the air.  

"There's Dust, Undyne," you notify her, aware of the panic you hear when you speak. Your friend grimaces harshly and reaches to hold up GD's head. "LD!" Her shout is aimed at the bar with it's left open door. LD comes barreling out on all fours moments later, but he's not alone, a familiar fire elemental gripping the ends of her red dress in one hand to keep her from stumbling. LD skitters around to Undyne's left, but Fuku stops next to you, her knees of pure energy hitting the ground as she sits.  

"Status?"  

"He was shot multiple times," you respond quickly. "There's Dust on his chest." 

Fuku nods once, and shifts forward with her hands raised above his chest. "Hold him," she orders this time, and Undyne snaps her head up in G's direction. "G!" 

G doesn't respond verbally, but moves closer quickly, standing above you all when he holds out a hand, palm down: "now." 

A bright, green light flickers into being beneath Fuku's hands, and the fire elemental holds in place on GD's chest, her expression set to one of absolute concentration, not breaking even as GD begins to  _howl_  in agony.  

It rips through you like agon causing tears to spring to your eyes, and every part of your being wanting to reach out and make it stop. GD is struggling, or trying to anyways, but the invisible force that is pressing him into the ground does not allow it. It's the same thing that whipped those humans through the air like rag dolls, and now it's being used to save GD's life.  

Undyne hisses through her teeth. "Why is he screaming like that," she demands.  

"The bullets," Fuku harshly utters, a droplet of something thick that almost resembles sweat running across the side of her face. "His Soul is focused on mending the damage, not processing the metal. If they remain... he will deteriorate... faster than he can heal." The little pauses in her response further betray how strenuous the task is, and you can only urge her and GD on silently in your head.  

 _Keep trying, stay alive_ _, don't give up._  

When the bullets come, they come as they entered, worming through gray tinged wounds in the monsters chest, now lightly coated in Dust. That they move further than the surface of GD's chest is due to G, who lifts his hold on the dog to remove the bullets and toss them aside. GD starts wriggling immediately, but doesn't move off the ground, his cries tired and pathetic. When Fuku's magic remains his movements eventually cease, and he's left gasping thick clouds of warmth, his pink tongue lolling out from between his jaws.  

Undyne heaves a great sigh, her eyes closing for only a moment before she's sitting up: she has a job to do. "LD," she speaks, and the dog skitters over, taking her place in cradling GD's head. As the captain moves away she sets a hand on Fuku's shoulder, the fire elemental nodding silently as a thanks is given and received. You're barely aware of what's happening, your attention set on the monster dog on the ground. 

"Mei!" Surprised by hearing the strange name again you can't help but dare to shift your eyes away with the alarm that's laced with that single utterance, and see that hers have gone wide. Fuku doesn't correct herself, merely reaching over and taking the hand you have left situated on GD. You haven't even noticed that you hadn't yet removed it, but it's not what grips your attention. "Blood!" 

It's on GD's fur from where it had been hidden under your palm, smearing when you lifted your hand away, but it's source it somewhere on your am. Even as you currently examine your hand the gash there wells up with fluid, dribbling over in the smallest of streams. It's a ghastly sight, and you have no idea where it came from.  

An image of picking up that rock and sending it crashing into that other human's face plays in your mind. It had to have happened then. There's no pain, only a small blip of surprise that enters your brain with a gentle " _oh_ ".  

Fuku acts when you fail to, taking your hand between her palms and allowing the light to return again. It feels much like when you use the air dryers in a bathroom, warm and fuzzy against your skin, and when she's done the gash has become a red, angry line.  

"I'm...I'm sorry," she pants, but waves off your responding alarm. "I'm...I'm still, still new at this." 

"your dad said you're working to be a doctor." 

G's voice takes you completely off guard, but his expression is shuttered off again, his gaze elsewhere. You see now that the fire in his eye socket has died back down to being a simple, yellow disc.  

"That's correct," Fuku responds, the same question in her face that must be in yours. "I've continued my schooling on recently on the Surface. Situations like this still exhaust me," she says lowly, a personal disappointment evident when she does so.  

"like your father was." 

"Tha-that's also correct," Fuku responds, curious again. "Before the war." 

When G says nothing, the topic has obviously been dropped, but there's not a moment to consider it remaining. "Jones!" You lift your head, not liking for a moment the panic in Undyne's voice, and see her running back over to your group. Was someone else hurt? "It's the old man! His shop, it's been attacked!"  

 _"_ _Gerson_ _?"_  

"And others. G!" 

"right," G steps between the two of you, letting Undyne grip his wrist. He spreads out a hand for you to take, but when you don’t move right away, he understands: "fuku n' ld have gd covered for now." A small sound of protest threatens to come up, but you have to ignore it. Gerson's fate is uncertain, and there's nothing good you can do here with GD, no matter how much you hate that fact. You take G's hand and stand, your Soul Mate releasing his grip to wrap his arm around your waist. "hang on." 

You hear Undyne curse when the void swallows the two of you whole. For the span of a breath you think to search for those humans, to see if they're suspended in the nothingness together, left to float in the darkness, but then you breathe out, and the chance is gone.  

 

The shop window has been completely smashed in. The sign over head is smeared with black, the same paint from the can that must have been tossed at it written clumsily across the door in lettering that remains easy to read: GO BACK. 

"Old man," Undyne gives a shout, breaking away from G and leaping through the remains of the window without hesitation. You and G are quick in pursuit, a deep fear rolling in your gut when you see everything inside but any sign of the shopkeeper. 

The nearest bookshelf to the door has toppled over, leaning on the other beside it, and paper litters the floor. Books have been torn, stepped on, and coated with paint. Glass coats the floor beside the front window, but also along the display cases up from. The precious geodes sitting on their small plush pillows are no where to be seen, and what remains of the toy is one cup-and-ball, the handle broken from being trampled under someone's foot.  

"Gerson!" "Old man!" You and Undyne call out together, the blue scaled monster running around the counter towards the back room, while you jog down the center aisle, searching for any sign of your boss among the damage. The shifting of movement tells you that G is moving the bookcase back to it's original position, the skeleton make sure that his former teacher isn't stuck between the shelves.  

His hammer is still on the wall, unused, and you can't find him in the rows of text when dart to the far corner of the shop, glancing back towards the front and along the wall for any sign of him.  

"He's not here," Undyne calls out, her volume picking up when she reenters the front. "I don't see him, " you reply just as loudly, jogging through the politics and economics section back to the center. G hasn't left the front, the sound of someone moving outside and his eye towards the door letting you know that the three of you are no longer alone. 

When Gerson steps into the doorway Undyne is over the counter in an instant, just as your running towards him, nearly tripping over a sheaf of paper in the process. Undyne lifts the old monster up much the same as she did weeks ago, and his laughter quells the storm in your chest to a dull roar. "Are you okay," you question as G asks: "what happened?" 

Gerson chuckles, Undyne mercifully setting him back on his feet, but goes into details. 

Apparently after he had left the play he had decided to head to the store to pick up a book to use as reference for a project he wanted to review that night. When he arrived, the vandals were still there, the window already destroyed and several humans causing havoc in and outside. At the sight of the turtle some had jumped ship, but like at Grillby's others were more confident. Yet whatever harm they may have tried to do to the seemingly frail and thus defenseless old monster was swiftly stopped in it's tracks. 

"Damn fools don't know a thing about magic," he says, his clever amusement making his fully-open eye twinkle. "Luckily even if it doesn't help the stock, the passive spell of protection for people in my profession remains in effect after hours as long as I'm near the store. Otherwise..." And here his smirk widens, something menacing hinted in his features and when he speaks. "Things may have gotten serious." 

Undyne joins Gerson in his wheezing cackle, but her shoulders remain set, her posture set. 

Gerson relays that he was away checking on the other monster businesses. Muffet's has also been hit, but her family thankfully remains safe. One of Frederick's ice cream parlors is thankfully untouched, a monster bear from Snowdin having walked past on his way home in time to stop any destruction. But the second, newer building has been completely looted.  

"they hit when they saw their chance," G mutters, and Undyne growls, stomping away out the front door of the shop, her phone already raising to her head.  

 _The play._  

The showtime for the preimer hadn't exactly been kept a secret. BP had adamantly refused doing so, thinking it might harsh the number of attendees, and that "imagining those bastards faces" was one of the things propelling his confidence towards being on stage again. But if there's anyone who finds drive by doing something out of spite, it's BP. 

Surprisingly it's not only monster-owned and ran stores that have been attacked. With them there's a family clothing cleaner deeper in the city, and also a private residence in Ebotton. "The tickets were bought anonymously," you tell the remaining two, mostly thinking out loud to yourself at this point with how tired you've become. This was supposed to be a night of celebration. "Someone must have been on the lookout and let them know what humans in the area attended."  

The thought of one of those assholes standing outside the theater, maybe even buying a ticket themselves and going inside makes you both furious and disgusted, your Soul fluttering in your chest like a guttering flame. G stands beside you, having gone quiet in the meantime, but his mouth is a slash across his skull, the hint of teeth he that naturally show gritting harshly.  

 _How did he know?_  Had G arrived at the bar a moment too late, you may not very well be standing here right now. But you know the answer, the spike of fear from the initial attack still a dull ache beneath your skin, and rather then attempt to smooth away the discomfort you reach out for him. His hand is clinched when yours finds it at his side, but the tightness of his mouth weakens after an initial flare of surprise. He rotates his wrist, his fingers unfurling and slides them between your own. His finger bones are hard, but thicker and stronger than a humans, his grip grounding you to the earth. You'd rather throw your arms around his shoulders and never let go, but this will definitely make do in the meantime. 

"gerson," G speaks, the old man humming in question. "lemme know if something comes up." 

"B-but the store-?" 

"Yeah, yeah," Gerson replies amiably, already shooing the two of you away.  "We'll take care of things tomorrow. It'll still be here when you come back, Sirius." 

"Right," you nod, regretfully giving in. You don't like the idea of leaving the place where you work and spend time with your friends in this condition, but you can't ignore the weight of exhaustion that’s settling on your person the longer you stay out.  

It's still snowing outside the shop, fat flakes drifting into your hair and sticking on contact. They swim through spotlights case by street side lamps, like strange fish caught in a beam of cutting through dark water, or dust motes near a window in a room rarely opened. It's beautiful, this night. "undyne," G addresses the monster standing next to the door, apparently her call having just ended with the drop of the device in her hand to her side. "we're headin' back. how're the others?"  

"Stewart the Bear has it covered at the Nice Cream shop..." She begins, her recounting failing to meet your ears when that particular piece of information causes you to reach into your coat pocket and take out your phone. It's been left on silent for the performance, but now seeing the blinking green notification light pushes a surge of guilt and worry into your sternum. Your aware of the tightening of G's hold on your hand, but he doesn't question you when you flip open the phone.  

Three missed calls from Alphys, one from BP, another from an unknown number from this area. The texts are worse, more in number from the yellow monster then your roommate, and you take the time to scroll through them all. 

(9:45) Doctor Alphys Flamel  

 _Undyne_ _told me you guys are going to see Gerson! I hope he's okay._  

 _Please let me know if there's anything I can do._  

(9:45) King BP 

 _They told me you left with that damn bonehead for Gersons_  

 _Damnit Jones you better not be hurt_  

(9:46) Doctor Alphys Flamel  

 _GD was moved with LD and Endogeny to Queen Toriel's house to see if there's anything else she can do._  

You let out a breath at this, happy that GD is possibly in better hands, and if he's being moved, that maybe he'll be alright after all. You aren't very knowledge about the biology of monsters, mostly because there's next to no biology to speak of, but Dusting is the worst of signs. 

(9:46) Doctor Alphys Flamel  

 _Fuku Fire went with them to help. I think she wants to do what she can, but if there's anyone that still knows anything about healing magic it's the queen!_  

 _Alphys_ _must still be pretty shaken up if she's not even using any emoticons, but can you blame her?_  

(9:46) Doctor Alphys Flamel  

 _Keep an eye on Undyne, will you? I trust her, but sometimes she gets ahead of herself._  

Fortunately the perpetrators are long gone, but given the state of the shop a part of you wishes this wasn't the case. They got away, running to who knows where. It's not fair.  

(9:46) King BP 

 _Fuck of course you are,_ _you're_ _as_ _coordinated_ _as a drunk walrus_  

(9:48) King BP 

 _Yeah,_ _yeah_ _Fuku just told me about your hand. If you think I'm not mother henning you over this shit_ _you're_ _wrong_  

The sigh you give is tired, but grateful. He's angry, so he's okay. Lighter now then you had previously been, you type a message with your thumb, knowing better then to leave him hanging for much longer. 

(10:11) xxx-xxxx  _to_  King BP  _and_  Doctor Alphys Flamel  

 _We're on our way back. Gerson is okay, but the shops wrecked._  

(10:12) Doctor Alphys Flamel  

 _I'm so glad! Undyne was so worried when you left, we all were!_  

(10:12) King BP 

 _Of course that codger is alright, he's old as shit._  

Your laugh comes at the end of Undyne's conversation with G, the fish monster raising a red eyebrow at the oddness of it given the situation. "BP, he's okay," you respond, waving your phone and then shoving it back into your pocket.  

"good," G is the one that speaks, and you aren't sure if he's aiming it at BP's welfare or the fact that you're laughing again.  

G takes the spot as the designated driver and blips the three of you back to the bar, Undyne reacting as she did at Gerson's and making a break for the crows that's formed outside as soon as you arrive. You see her practically tackle her girlfriend in relief, Alphys patting Undyne's shoulder with a smile that melts from shock to a tired happiness. But Alphys isn't the only one. 

" _Jones_ , what the  _fuck_?" BP is shoving through the crowd in an instant, for all the world a picture of righteous indignity as the still fantastically formally dressed orange monster swoops you into a hug. G doesn't let go of your hand, and your left with your arms pressed awkwardly to your sides, and your smile buried in the fluffed fur of your best friend. "If I thought I was moving in with a goddamn martyr I would have left you in my closet at home." 

"BP, I can't breathe." 

"What-?" He jerks away from you. At last he sees your watery eyes and held breath, cursing colorfully when he backs off and removes his nicotine drenched costume away from you. "Shit, sorry Jones, but it's your fault-. No! It's their fault, those bastard humans who attacked us!" BP's scowl deepens, "Where the hell are they, anyways?" 

"preoccupied," G responds, and BP's scowling visage is nothing compared to the inch of malice G displays in the quirk of his mouth when considering that particular lot. BP accepts his answer, his anger visibibly calming. " _Good_."  

Looking between the two of them, it's a stark difference compared to when G had picked up to head to the bar to eat, and it's remarkably soothing witnessing your best friend and unknowing Soul Mate getting along. As it is, BP pointedly glances at the hand of G's that your holding, but you shake your head slightly. 

"How's Frederick?" 

"Upset about his place being ransacked, but just happy that everyone's alright," BP responds, rolling his eyes playfully. "That's how he is. Speaking of, Jones, I'm heading over with him to check out the damage. And since you're relatively undamaged," he flicks a glance over your form, from your scuffed shoes to your probably rats nest of a hair, "I'll trust bonehead here to keep it that way."  

"loud n' clear, puss," G replies smoothly, and BP flicks him a well-known human gesture of insult. So much for that.  

BP steps forward and cups your chin with both hands, pressing a kiss to your forehead and then distancing himself again. "I'll see you at home, Jones."  

"You, too, BP," you reply back, just as lowly. He spares you another long glance then leaves, disppearing into the crowd.  

"ready to go," G asks you. You peer around at the monsters and the few humans, the police men in blue with the lights of their cars flashing as they talk to Dogamy and Dogaressa. Alphys is still with Undyne. As Alphys said, there's no sign of GD or LD, the Dust GD had shed long since having mingled with the fallen snow, but with Undyne as well as she could be temperament wise, you have reason to guess that he'll be okay. There's nothing you can do here now, nothing but perhaps give a statement to the cops, but stars knows how well that's going to go over.  

"Yeah, I'm ready." 

 

Ten minutes or so later and you find yourself slumping in the chair next to Papyrus' bed, your bones settling underneath your skin, and the specific one's that make up your spine groaning in equal parts complaint and relief. You had barely done anything during the attack, but combined with the hour and the emotional toll, you find you can't help yourself.  

G is in the other room reassuring a fretting Hollie, your friend having nodded towards the hall and given you an out in the conversation to relax with his brother. Paps is the same as you last saw him, serene, completely unaware of what's happened. You don't know if you prefer this. On one hand there was no risk of him being hurt, physically or emotionally, but on the other he couldn't go to the play, or stop by at Grillby's for the after party. As short as it was, it was enjoyable while it lasted.  

 _Ignorance is_ _bliss_ _, but_ _this... not_ _like this,_ you mind ruefully profides. Giving into temptation, you reach forward, taking his hand nearest to you in your own, the very one that had previously been wounded. Something beneath the skin twinges when you curl your fingers around his own. His are long and thin, yours short and fleshy in comparison. It's a stark contrast, but you like the contact.  

 _I want to meet you, Paps. I want G to see you wake, to move, to smile like you used to._  

"star." You turn your head, catching G as he hands to you a thick mug full of something warm, steam drifting from the top. "Thank you,"you reply, taking it with your left hand while not releasing Paps with your right. G takes a seat on the bed holding a bottle of worchestire.  

"he move at all?" 

This provokes an immediate reaction from you, something tentative within that threatens to either overtake you or shatter. "He's been moving?" 

"his eyes, at least once," G responds, and you automatically look to Paps face. "i wanted to tell you that we picked up something while monitoring his magic. Siri...," his voice falters, causing your heart to nearly shudder. No, no. But G catches you panic before it can rise, smiling. "he's been  _dreaming_." 

 _What?_  

Ever since the incident Paps has shown next to no change, locked in a coma-induced state with no signs of magical use beyond what's necessary to keep him alive. But dreaming? In humans that means brain activity, that means  _hope_.  

" _G,"_ you utter his name with sheer awe, the enormity of the situation hitting you hard. After sitting down your drink as quickly as you can manage without making a complete mess, you release your hold on Paps and move forward, but G is already there to meet you arms wide and his bottle forgotten on the bed beside him when he envelops you in a hug. It's all you ever needed for the end of the night, and more, because Paps is actually  _dreaming!_ He's more alive then he's been in a long time and  _damni_ _t_  he deserves so much more than this, but it's  _something!_  

G is laughing  and so are you but you're also tearing up, painfully aware of the fact but also not caring in the least bit when he pulls away to brush the hair out of your eyes. When your eyes close and his forehead meets yours in a familiar gesture of affection, the same one outside of the shop only two days before that left you a bumbling mess, your smile is as wide as it can get, a pathetic sob mixing in with your mirth.  

When you both open your eyes G hold's onto your left hand, watching his brother in sad reverence. You pick Papyrus' hand back up, the length of his forearm enough that you don't even need to lean down to kiss it.  

Despite everything, this night of celebration has refused to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this is late. I really wanted to get this chapter right, but I don't like it when I miss uploading on Saturday. Because of this, it's both shorter, but also I think much better then it was! Action scenes are still a new thing for me, but hopefully I didn't miss the mark too badly. 
> 
> Next time: A friend met, a dinner shared, and a misunderstanding had.


	14. Of a Rise and a Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for how late this is, again(!!!), but I promise you that even if I miss the original upload date of Saturday, this fic will update every week at least once unless I give warning.  
> This chapter was inspired by the songs "Belly of the Deepest Love," by Tow'rs, "Home", by Toby Fox, and lastly "The Sun's Gone Dim and the Sky's Turned Black", by Jóhann Jóhannsson.

It's the light of morning that finds you, causing your eyes to stir beneath their lids and the joints of your spine to complain bitterly. An odd combination of feelings, that warmth and that discomfort, but when you blink it makes sense as to why you would feel this way. It's the almost obnoxious twittering of birds that gives away the hour, that and the thickness of your tongue with the dead weight of your limbs, causing you to feel like an arisen corpse.  

There's something soft beneath your head you know, but you don't see that it's someone's bed until you sit up, bones groaning at the strain of having been in such an awkward angle for so long. There's a thickness on your tongue as you rub away the sleep from your eyes, sluggishly examining the skeleton laid out in his bed. Papyrus is in no different a position then he was the night before, but what you're confused about is as to why you're still next to him to begin with. 

When did you fall asleep? Why had G never woken you? Where is he, anyways? 

The bedroom looks different than normal, you having never seen it so early in the day, and Papyrus appears more peaceful, but maybe that's a result of having a dreaming mind again rather then a trick of the light. Maybe it's just you, but you feel a fuzzy sort of warmth just watching him. 

 _Stop it, that's just G, isn't it?_ Sharing his memories to some extent and hearing so much about Papyrus probably did this to you, but you can't complain. The younger brother just gives off this aura of comfort, no matter what the case he's just wants to help everyone feel better. 

Something shifts in the air when G enters the doorway of the room, your head turning automatically in his direction and the sight causing your eye brows to raise faintly when you notice that he's wearing a T-shirt for once, sans jacket.  

"mornin'," G greets you, unaware of your quiet appreciation of this peek at his arms, and him in a slightly more casual outfit then normal? What? A person has to appreciate the little things in life, after all.  

"Good morning," you reply, catching yourself from staring and getting distracted for too long. "What time is it?" Asking this you run a hand through your hair, grimacing when you feel how squashed it is on one side, where your head had lain cradled in your arms all night.  

He hums, propping himself up on the doorway. "'bout 10:30." 

"10:30!" You spring up from your chair, lightheadedness taking hold of your skull and causing you to wobble uselessly for a moment. "I have to get to work," you groan, removing your phone from your pocket. It was dead, no wonder it hadn't woken you up. Where's your jacket? There it is, next to Papyrus' action figures. Had G taken it off for you? 

"don't worry," G replies, earning an incredulous look from you. Of course you had to worry, you're late and the store was attacked last night and you probably look awful-. "i called the old man earlier. he's at the shop cleanin' up and said to take your time. ld and gd are there helpin'." 

"GD," you nearly shout in astonishment, caught between shoving your other arm in your jacket, G's old coat, and freezing in place at the mention of the monster dog "He's okay? I want to see him-," you start, already heading towards the exit of the room, but G doesn't budge an inch to let you leave. 

"hold on. breakfast first, starlight," he almost scolds you, his mouth shifting up into a smile when the use of the nickname sends heat bursting into your cheeks despite how eager you are to leave. "humans need nutrients. the boyfriend can wait," he says, finally leaving the doorway and walking away. 

Boyfriend?  

"GD's not my boyfriend," you say after him, following him into the living room. Scents of over baked blueberries and bananas hit your nose when you stand with him next to his coffee table, the skeleton lifting a brown sack off the top to hand to you. There's a picture of a spider in a circular design on the front, Muffet's stamped in curling letters around it, caught in a spider web backdrop.  _Holy cow this smells great._  

"right, you prefer um' short," he cracks smoothly, and you're not too busy digging out the food to resist nudging him with your elbow, G snickering. 

"Like you would know," you reply, and hope that he doesn't catch onto the slight tinge of bitterness in your tone. It's too early for you to sulk about your Mateship, but you even manage to surprise yourself.  

"suppose not," he replies, and you don't really understand what he means by this, balancing the baked goods in your hands, but he waves them both off. "already ate," and goes to grab his coat by the door. He sounded off right then, but again, you don't know what to make of this. Shaking your head, you stuff one of the treats into the back, checking the receipt when it brushes your hand. Two muffins, banana and blueberry, and a cinnamon scone.  

 _You're_ _being weird_ , you chastise yourself, and put the piece of paper away to bury your teeth stubbornly into a burst of tart berry. When you notice G with his coat on and grabbing some keys hanging by the door, you hurry to stand next to him. He chuckles, curiosity rising in you until he reaches over and picks up the other sleeve of your jacket, still sadly not on your other arm.  

Great, now you're blushing again, but G helping you into the remainder of your coat while you still hold your food with your other hand brings you delightfully close to him, the skeleton zipping it up in a familiar gesture afterwards.  

"lets bounce." 

 

It's almost scary seeing the shop window of the store still shattered in the morning light, but unlike the night previous when you all first discovered it, it's hardly deserted. When G and you pop into the back room, not wanting the morning traffic of humans going to their workplaces and coffee shops, there are several monsters in the back going through the normally boxed up goods. At the table is a brown bear in a letterman jacket peering over damaged books, someone G waves to after you arrive.  

"hey, stuart," he greets them, the monster bear nodding in turn with a smile but otherwise working. Monsters shift aside when the two of you approach the exit to the room, you still glancing around almost wryly. It's not that you don't trust these people, it's just odd seeing the normally private section of the building so full.  

The front is no worse, if anything there's ever more. Monsters of various sizes and shapes are wiping down shelves, stacking books in towers beside them, and picking up the tattered remains of others. But it's the sight of a certain white furred large monster that gets your attention, and you move around the counter eagerly while trying to get his.  

"GD—sorry," you move around a monster, trying to give them space to work and trying not to bump into them, but you notice when GD lifts his head and turns in his spot sniffing around at the back of the room. His jaw parts even before you reach him, a doggy smile on his muzzle at the sight of you that causes you to grin ear to ear. He's  _okay._ You nearly slip over a book on the way down the main aisle, but you're soon next to the dog, his great arms scooping you up into a hug that causes you to burst into giggles. 

GD's is whining delightfully in your ear, his grip on your harder than anything you can ever hope to manage yourself, but you try anyways. The weight that has been accumulating since he was shot falls off your shoulders at last, even hearing about him being in a stable condition hadn't done that the night before. You needed to see it with your own eyes.  

There's a bark at your side on the ground, and you see LD down below. "LD! He's okay," you say pointlessly, but LD is elated by the shared mood, bouncing on their feet until GD picks him up to join in on the hug-fest.  

The remainder of the morning goes just as well, something about a hugging session made of mostly dog lifting your mood. But G is also there, using his magic to lift shards of glass tiny piece by tiny piece into place in their frame while a fire elemental stands nearby, Hotman heating the glass until it fits together again. It's something only those with magic could pull off, and you're no less amazed by it then when the Emergence began.  

Your boss is puttering around helping with the labor, not willing to sit by while others worked on restoring his first above ground shop in centuries. Your dismayed by the destruction of the books, but it could be worse. It turns out that Stuart the Bear is not only helping Gerson track damage, but also repair what they can, while making lists for new replicas to be made. 

That's how Gerson's runs itself. Your boss makes copies of books, sales those, and replaces them swiftly, that way the original is kept tucked away, and no one ever has to worry about missing out a book that would otherwise inform them more on monster culture.  

"Also cuts out the middle man," Gerson cackled the first time he told you, his eyebrows bouncing wickedly. Money is saved, and books can't be regulated and restricted by humans that would otherwise "help" distribute his material. As it is, many of the books he has are titles the government has possibly yet to pick up on, and with certain human books that remain banned in places like private schools, goodness knows what will happen in certain parts of the country if they see what he's peddling. Not that it would stop him from continuing to sell them.  

You hear from BP around noon, your roommate having stayed up that night cleaning up Frederick's store, and then the theater early that morning.  

 _"Once we put up the tarp on the window and_ _finished_ _working, I didn't know what to do. I was still so damn fidgety,_ " he says into your ear, your phone held up as you rub away at the black lettering scrawled on the shops sign. _"I don’t even remember falling asleep this morning."_  

"Neither do I," you reply, teeth gritting as you stubbornly scrub at the paint.  _There's gotta be a better way of-._ Your inner rant is cut off by the Whimsun that comes fluttering next to your place perched up on the ladder. They have clutched to their chest with their tiny hands a bottle of some kind of spray, you taking it from them carefully as to not drop it with their already trembling hold to read the side.  _Paint stripper._ "Oh." That should do it. "Thank you," you say, but they're already fluttering away again.  

 _"Work on the shop working out,"_ BP asks, reminding you that you're still in the middle of a conversation.  

"Yeah, I'm cleaning up the sign right now. There's so many people here! It's going so well, Gerson didn't even close shop," you admit, having seen more then one monster buy a book and place it in an ever growing pile behind the counter to be picked up later. "The workers are even buying things." 

" _Ha, clever codger. Hey, dinner tonight?"_  

"Sure, thing," you respond brightly, already looking forward to sitting with your roommate at home. Just staying away overnight had been off putting, let alone everything else that had happened. "Oh, wait, BP. I need to tell you something," you say in a near rush as you quickly descend the ladder, feeling as though he was about to say goodbye. It wasn't like he was going to hang up on you suddenly, but you're too excited to care.  

" _What's up?_ " 

"It's Papyrus! BP, G says he's been _dreaming_. He's getting better!"  

" _Holy s_ _tars_ ," he breathes out and laughs on the other end, making you grin even more. " _Shit it's about time!"_  

"I know! G's so happy, he's finally getting his younger brother back." You're practically bouncing on your toes, okay, you really are bouncing on your toes, but even the passerby can distract you from your happiness once you turn around to face the shop.  

"That's  _where you've been all night_ ," BP"s words pop your joy like a balloon, leaving your suspended in the air on how to process the pseudo-annoyed, kind of teasing smirk you can just  _hear_ him wearing.  

"BP-." 

" _Tell me about it later. Thai this time. Bye_."  

And with that he hangs up, the only pitiful thing you can do is send a raspberry at the now quiet phone in your hand and sulk.  

"Hey!" You lift your chin at the unfamiliar voice, thinking it must be directed at someone else until to you notice a certain human walking down the sidewalk towards you. It's the orange beanie wearing person from last night, the human that stood beside you in front of Grillby's! "Am I interrupting something?" They nod their head towards the phone in your hand, their own otherwise occupied with the deep pockets of their large duck style work jacket. Last night with the darkness you may not have recognized them in any other situation, but the events are still fresh in your mind, a play by play something you're convinced that you can give pretty confidently if asked. 

"N-no," you respond, already feeling jittery in the presence of this near-stranger. Did shared experiences of being attacked eliminate the possibility of ever being strangers again? Okay, now you're getting distracted. "Hey," you parrot them back, putting away your phone as they stop in front of you. "You're okay!"  Does your voice sound higher pitched than normal? 

"Yeah, hey, and so are you," they respond, in that same awkward tone of voice new acquaintances use around each other. "I was wondering how you were doing after the attack. The cops showed up and you disappeared." You can feel their honest concern in their voice, and the guilt comes, your hand going up to rub at the side of your face self-consciously.  

"Oh, I-I left, with a friend," you reply, pointing over your shoulder towards the shop. G isn't even outside, but they probably get what you mean by the nod they give you. "I-I wanted to check up on the shop, on Gerson's. I work here? And I was worried about him, m-my boss."  

"You're the one that works with the old man!" They're smiling more now, appearing faintly amused by something. "Undyne told me about that. I was wondering if I'd meet you!" 

"You know Undyne," you ask. Of course they do, what else could what they just said mean? But it's already out, and you're already embarrassed, so there's no stopping you now. 

"Yeah, dude, she came to some of my basketball games sometime after they left the mountain," they reply casually, already more at ease with this conversation then you are. "After the first game she met me in the back, wanted to know more about the sport from my teammates. They weren't all happy..." This person trails, growing somber in a way you understand, but they perk up again shortly after. "But I told her all the rules and stuff. She was real interested. We've been talking ever since, sometimes I see her at the gym."  

"Oh," you reply simply, not knowing what else to say, but glad to hear about this nonetheless. Undyne has been getting along with other humans, and this one even showed up at the bar last night. It's probably pessimistic of you, but sometimes you have to be reminded that not every human is like your former boss.   

"I'm Cam, by the way," they say, presenting a hand that you respond to with a shake, their grip firm and strong on yours. "Student, basketball player, as you know," they nod to themselves, humor in their voice, like they're saying " _D_ _uh, Cam_ " in their head.  

"I-I'm Sirius Jones. Undyne might have said that, but yeah. N-nice to meet you."  

This is the first real time you've been around a human for such a lengthy time for... well, awhile? But Cam stays at the shop, helping out and greeting a few monsters they apparently know. You learn more about them along the way, Cam being the type to talk as they work.  

They're a he, and a student at the local university on a scholarship. He's half-Vietnamese on his mom's side and lived with her in Russia for much of his life until the anti-Vietnamese sentiment drove them away ten years ago. "Ma was willing to put up with it, our whole family was pretty iron-skinned, but she never wanted me to live with it forever. So, here we are!"  

Because of what he and his family faced in Russia Cam is more than a little experienced in dealing with prejudice from humans, and with the Emergence he felt naturally inclined to help them in any way he can. He doesn't state it with words, but it helped that his Mate would turn out to be a monster. 

"I still remember that night," he's saying as he helps you sort through some books, placing poetry in stacks based off topic, from nature to love to religion, a concept that you've always been curious about when considering monsters. It's not been unheard of for monsters to take up human religions, but at their core it's always been the stars they've felt drawn too, rather than an omnipresent being.  

 _"The Stars we Were_ _/_ _A_ _nd from them we Remain_ " a stanza in one poem reads in one of the books, your eyes skimming over the words until you close it again. You don't have time to spend reading just yet, but Cam's mention of the day of the Emergence grabs has all of your attention anyways. 

The two of you are sitting in the back of the store, you on your knees while he shifts to sitting on his rear, his back pressed against a shelf behind him. "I was with my team on a trip in Okinawa, just fooling around, eating food, hanging out. Then I just..." He stops, his gaze unfocusing, but again you understand what he means. He blinks, flipping the book in his hand over, and over again sluggishly. "I had to get to the window, to be outside. I just climbed out, onto the roof our second floor room, and stood there." He laughs gently at this, almost embarrassed. "My friends, they didn't get it. But it felt as though..." 

"A pressure, on your chest, right?" You try, and he turns his head, face clearing as his eyes widen. "Like your Soul, trying to get out?" 

"Right! You have a monster Soul Mate?" He's positively thrilled, but you're frowning, even if you are kind of amused by his response. 

"Undyne didn't tell you?"  

"No, but that stuff is kind of private sometimes," he says quieter this time. "Not with everybody, not always with the monsters, either. Hey! But have you met them?" He pats your arm with the book, eager for an answer, and you can't help but nod, smiling this time when he does. 

"Holy cow, dude! Or, holy stars, should I say," he says, not jokingly so, but more like he's just  _happy_  to being using that phrase.  

"Yeah, he's uh, the one that took me home last night." 

" _Dude_." 

"N-not like that," you snap, earning a snicker from him that reminds you of a certain shared monster friend. But still, you can't help yourself when you say, "he's here right now." 

Cam's eyebrows shoot up at this, and you glance over to where you expect G to be, if the gentle pull of your Soul has anything to say about it. He's standing under Gerson's hammer with the old man, half turned away from you. He must feel the two sets of eyes on him, because he turns his skull, smiling at you from several feet away.  

 _"_ _D_ _ude,"_ comes Cam' voice from next to you, appreciation evident in that one word, and you can't help but smile anew at this. Yeah, you totally understood.  

Looking away from G, albeit reluctantly, you open up the cover of the book in your lap pointlessly and then place it aside in the nature pile. "H-have you met yours?" 

"Nah." 

You definitely didn't expect this, and Cam's grin is a little lack luster now. You've only just met G recently, but still, you're disappointed for Cam.  

"I've been so busy with school, and practice. I have monster friends around, you know? But I've just kinda missed them," he says with more positivity then you had ever felt prior to meeting G. "When it happens, it happens. Not that I'm not super excited for when it does," his smile is just as friendly as it was previously, the thought of not being able to run into his Soul Mate right away not getting him down.  

Cam isn’t the only human to swing by the shop. Several of Gerson's previous customers show up as well, and eventually a certain human child that afternoon.  

You're processing a payment for another book when Frisk arrives with Toriel, and all of the monsters in the shop perk up immediately. It must have something to do with Frisk being the adopted child of the queen, a first in of course a long, long time, but everyone's eager to greet the kid, no one more so then the monster dogs. GD and LD's separate tails cause more then a few leaflets of a paper to scatter in the air, but everyone's laughing, Toriel standing by with Gerson as she watches her child in nothing short of the absolute pinnacle of motherly affection.  

"Sirius," she comes to greet you at the counter as Frisk remains busy with the others, and you walk around to the front to talk to her properly, unsurprised when she wraps you in a warm hug. "I was so worried about you last night," she's saying into your hair, and when the hug ends, the sight of the lingering concern in her eyes makes you bite your lip. "Frisk and I went home with their friend MK after the play, I had no idea about what had occurred until Grillby called me." 

"I'm sorry," you say, and then catch yourself. It's not your fault, but you don’t like the thought of her being upset. "W-when the play wasn't interrupted it just caught us off guard."  

She sighs deeply. "I'm only happy that so many remained unharmed. Unlike yourself! Ms. Fuku told me that you received a cut on your hand," she says, already taking your hand between her own great paws, turning yours over to see the palm. "Oh," she mutters softly, and you could say the same. 

The skin is utterly umblemished from where the gash once was. You recall that Fuku managed to heal it into a thin, angry line, a possible scar perhaps, but not even the possibility of that remains. Your hand is completely unmarred, but, then again, you're hardly surprised. "I'm a fast healer," you tell her, almost sheepishly when the glance she gives you has a spark of awe in it. Was it really so extraordinary? You had Fuku to help after all.  

"Such magic..." Toriel mutters, running a finger over your skin. Lifting her head she smiles, that spark remaining. "The Soul is a wondrous thing."  

"Fuku healed GD so quickly," you agree, belaying your own astonishment, albeit she seems amused by your reaction. Even if Fuku had been near exhausted by the act, it's remarkable how something like rounds from a semi-automatic weapon could be worked away like that. "When GD was shot beside me, I...I d-didn't know what to think." You may never forget his cries of pain, the whimpering, his howl of agony during the removal of the bullets themselves.  

"GD informed me that you were there at the front by his side when it happened," Toriel says, her voice narrowing. She's almost reprimanding you now, and wilt slightly, not at all liking the nostalgic feeling of being scolded by a parent. But as sad as she is, her eyes begin to shine, and she pulls you into another hug, your confusion not allowing you to hug her back right away. "Frederick was correct. To do what you did, if only so many others felt the same, things would be easier. This reminds me so much of how things once were."  

"I think they can change," you say into her fur, your smile tentative when she draws back to look upon your face again. "It won't happen again. As long as we try, you'll never go back to the mountain." 

It doesn’t come right away, but when it does, Toriel's smile unfurls warmly, every inch of her regality given away in that single expression. "I believe so as well."  

It removes any trace of uncertainty from your own, and your looking up at her, an eager confidence surging in your chest.  

But it's oddly quiet, isn't it? 

You drop your eyes away from the queen and glance around, only just then noticing the eyes turned in your direction. The monsters are grinning, some positively beaming, and suddenly you have the overwhelming urge to bury your face in the queen's chest, only holding back enough to just drop your head and clench your fists brought together infront of you, a hint of the fabric of her dress caught between them. Toriel's gentle laughter fills the air, her hand rubbing your back in a calming motion, but your face remains ablaze.  

 _This is why BP is the actor_ _!_ _How can he stand it_ _?_  

 

It's one of those oddly warm, winter days outside Gerson's shop, where you, and G stand, ready to see Toriel and Frisk off. They have a whole day mapped out, every hour spent visiting the different shops, making sure everyone is okay, and Toriel continuing to do what work she can in lending her healing magic to help who she can. 

"Not many were harmed last night outside of where the celebration was held," she's saying, smiling as the few humans that pass by gaze up at her in childlike glee. Others have taken to staying on the other side of the street, what with the higher than normal traffic of monsters in the store, but some aren't so afraid. "But I wish to do what I can to instill hope in the hearts of my—of the people." 

"they're still yours, tori," G says from beside you, grinning his lazy sliver of a grin. "crown or not." Frisk tugs at their mother's coat, beaming up at her when Toriel peers down, the mother unable to help but smile in response.  

"I suppose they are." She says softly. But her expression changes, the smile dropping into something more serious when she looks back at G. "Tell me, what did you do to the attackers last night, G?" 

G huffs out a breath, the bit of warmth his magic instills in it catching in the air.  

Breathing is an odd thing with monsters, you've learned recently. It's entirely unnecessary, them being without the typical biological assets and their functions that humans would have. Magic simply regulates itself through a monsters body, expended with it's use slowly over time or in certain amounts with certain abilities. Food and rest helps replenish it, but food is broken down magically, the process faster or slower based off of the amount of magic instilled in a single meal. That being said, nearly everything inherently contains magic, and thus can be broken down, but something like factory processed bullets from human made steels and metals takes much longer, requiring more magic to break down. 

You've had food that was almost completely magic based with Undyne and Alphys before, and it was much like eating cotton candy, with all of the normal fullness after that any human made meal could instill.  

But in the case of drawing breath into their physical bodies, far less physical than your own, it can help regulate magic at a faster speed for a short time, or, in some cases, breath can be used to display emotion. " _A human_ _necess_ _ity_ _that became a monster's habit_ ," Toriel had said once during G's time away from you, and shortly after you joined Gerson's shop. _"And passed down through every generation. Like a_ _grandchild_ _humming a song their grandparent learned from an old friend."_  

G's response is cynical, but the his smile has turned darkly amused.  

"G," Torial tries again, harder this time. 

"left um' in grillbz' basement," he replies, continuing when the two of you appear confused. "pretty dark down there, might as well be no different." 

"G!" Oh no, there's the Voice again, that same one you heard in the shop.  

"what? i told 'um about it, and he let them out," he says, peering down the street, but still as confident and casual on the outside as ever. "eventually."  

Toriel's sigh causes all six or so feet of her to slump, the monarch appearing world wry and tired even as her child sends G a reprimanding puff of their red cheeks. "With the amount of witnesses and these people being unharmed, more or less," she side eyes the skeleton, G snickering in response, "the human police will have no choice but to have them behind bars immediately." 

 _But how long will that last exactly?_  You know how these things work out sometimes. Shoot up a building, and you might only receive a slap on the wrist if you know the right people, and monster sentiment isn't as high right now as it could be.  

"siri." 

"I don't know if that will last," you respond, and you can feel Toriel's eyes on the top of your head. "My kind aren't very good about keeping people locked up that deserve it, not if someone else can benefit from their release. Especially if they're apart of the majority." 

Toriel hums a response, the sigh still evident when she speaks, but she straightens her stance, her hands clasped before her. "With so little at our disposal, we must trust them. If there is anything, there can be hope." 

Hope, hoping. Doing next to nothing is supposed to be the easy way out, the method that takes the least amount of work ergo the one makes you feel better. But not being able to do anything doesn't feel good, nor is it easy, and you feel your jaw harden in frustration. 

This time it's G that reaches out first, his fingers lacing into yours, reminding you that you aren't alone, and when he locks eyes with yours you very much see this fact. He understands, he's just as upset, but he's not going anywhere.  

Toriel's gentle chuckle draws you to the fact that she's there as well, and so his Frisk, snickering in your direction. You flush, knowing that they must have noticed your silent exchange with G, but unwilling to let go of his hand for it. 

"As young as you are, you have time to understand," Toriel says, still clearly amused. "Nothing is stronger than hope," she says, and you wish you could tuck that confidence in her voice away to use for yourself, but then something changes. Her smile turns a little thin, her eyes glinting conspiratorially, a commanding presence to the set of her shoulders. "But should all else fail, I have my ways. I did not stay in power for so long in a world of humans without picking up a few tricks."  

"tricks?" 

"Call them, methods of persuasion," that glint sharpens, making you very aware that you not only stand next to a powerful, regal queen, but a  _dangerous_  one. But then the glint is gone, Toriel's demeanor the epitome of friendliness. "That said, Frisk and I should be going," she says, taking Frisk's hand in her own, and her momentary distraction allowing you and G to share a silent glance. "Oh! Frisk wanted to ask you both something." 

Frisk jumps to attention, darting over to stand before you and G, their arms waving as G reads something you cannot. "dinner at tori's this weekend," he hears from Frisk's Soul, and looks to you. "they wanna make up for what happened last night." 

"That sounds like a wonderful idea to me," you say, glancing between him and Frisk, the kid jumping up and down in agreement, clearly excited about having their closest friends all in one place.  

"Then it's decided," Toriel says, and when Frisk races back to her side she takes their hand again, adjusting the little scarf they wear with their other before straightening up again. You and G see them off with a wave, the monsters in the shop joining in with a chorus of "farewells" and "goodbyes" when they see the pair leaving.  

As their backs disappear down the street, eventually joining with the stream of people, a spike of something sharp pierces your Soul. Stiffening suddenly, your eyes narrow unconsciously as you recognize the feeling: you're annoyed. Very annoyed. You turn to G for answers, and see someone crossing the road, moving in your direction. They wear a thick, knee to neck coat, combined with a scarf, boots, a hat, and, of all things, a pair of sunglasses. For all the world you can't tell who this tall individual could be, sashaying across the road, but G is obviously way ahead of you, the signals his Soul is sending speaking wonders. 

"I see that I've just missed them," they drawl, voice muffled from behind fabric, and your brow furrows. You recognize that voice. 

"fashionably late, as usual," G grits out a reply, the exasperation on his skull almost amusing to you with how greatly this person is affecting him. "what the hell do you want?" 

"You know what I want, G," they reply, and tilt their glasses down just enough for their eyes to appear, and Mettaton turns his glowing magenta eyes towards you. "Good afternoon, darling," he says, and you know he's smiling. "A bird told me that you stood up against those  _nasty_  humans from last night. I can see Frisk isn’t the only one of your kind worth their while." 

"answer the question, toaster," G nearly hisses, making you shiver faintly in a clash of emotions, and he take a step before you, putting some space between you and the other monster. 

Metatton huffs an amused chuckle, removing their glasses fully to prop the hand that holds them on a cocked, well-covered hip by his wrist. "Simple. I want to see him." 

"no." 

Metatton scoffs, almost feigning insult with a hand to his chest, but there's a flash of something sharp in his naturally black penciled vision. "You didn't even hear my argument." 

"go ahead." 

"I know about-." 

"no." 

" _Let me finish_ ," Metatton says in a hushed shout, his composure unbelievably breaking before falling back into place, but G is already smirking. "I know about the dreams,  _G,"_ he nearly sneers, his eyes darting to you pointedly in a sign you don't understand, and G's smile is gone. "I heard it from one of Hollie's friends. Big fan of mine, by the way. Smile and be the right kind of wonderful, and you'd be amazed at how easy it is for people to like you," the monster snaps, and your hold on G's hand tightens, the annoyance in your chest changing into anger, and it's not coming from the skeleton. "I want to know the truth, G. I want to know if, if he still-." 

"no," G replies, and cuts Metatton off before he can argue again. "i don't know. i have no way of knowing what he dreams about, no more than i have any control over who. his dreams are his. jealous?" 

G's sockets are black now, his eye light snuffed, and your anger fades in favor of being taken over by worry. Metatton only sniffs, replacing his glasses on his pert nose and crossing his arms. "You know, you aren't the only one that cares for him." 

"i know," G responds, unchanging. "but siri is the only other person here that does." 

Metatton doesn't reply to him for this, instead turning his disguised face back to you, "Good luck, darling. You'll need it after the last one." 

There's a loud screech of metal in the air that causes your neck to turn your head swiftly for the source, and you see a DevEx mailbox across the street beyound Metatton twist in on itself, passerby yelling in mixed reactions of fear and surprise. There's no sight of G's tell-tale blue magic, but you know it's coming from him. "get the message?" He asks the other monster, confirming what you know. "leave." 

Metatton finally does, heading in the direction that Frisk left with Toriel, but his gait has stiffened, less flowing then it was previously when he first approached.  

You say nothing to G about the encounter right away, but he's still clearly upset, and you want, need to do something about it. Turning away from the street, you move to stand in front of him, not liking the light of his eye being gone for so long. "G?" 

Just like that it returns, but his shoulders lower, and that light skitters away from meeting your eyes. "i'm sorry." Why is he apologizing? Why does he always apologize, even if he's done nothing wrong? It  _hurts_ , but, no, you can't let it. Because then he might feel it and then he might feel worse.  

" _W_ _hy_ _didn't_ _thechicken_ _skeleton_ _cross_ _the_ _road_ _,"_ you ask in a rush, not knowing what you're saying until it's out and in the air. "Because he didn't have any guts! Why did cow cross the road? To get to the udder side," you throw up your hands, as if this is the most amazing thing ever, but, frankly, he's not responding and you're panicking a little. "Why did the duck cross the road? Because he wasn't a chicken!" 

 _"_ _t_ _tft,"_ G's on occupied hand flies up to try and stifle the sound, but it's an utterly pointless action with the literal hole in his palm, the circular puncture in the bone allowing more of his laughter to escape, until you laugh as well out of the sheer delight of it. You can feel his grief in your chest, but your Soul also holds his own burst of amusement, a tide of it washing over the bad as your own makes his grow. Several monsters have leaned out the open door of shop by now, but you're barely capable of paying them any heed, nearly bent over now in a fit of giggles with G's hand holding your own, and the other now on your shoulder for support.  

 _"t_ _-that was t-t-t-terrible!"_  

" _I knoooow!_ " 

"siri, siri," G says quickly, catching your attention and nearly, just nearly, halting your laughter altogether. 

"What," you ask, straightening up weakly with G, and waiting in excitement at what most certainly must be a joke of his own. 

"why won't the monster skeleton cross the road," he starts, and you frown, not really expecting him to be speaking of himself, right now, at this moment. "Why?" 

He takes a smooth step closer to you, realizing your hand so his own can join his other in cradling your chin, bone molded against flesh, his face so near to yours, you could take one step yourself and smother his grin with your lips if only you would give into the temptation to do it.  

"because this human is too damn cute to leave alone." 

Blood shoots straight to your skull faster then you can blink, the whole world shifting in a wave of dizziness, you knees weakening, your face a million goddamn degrees.  _Oh no_ _ohnonono_ _._  

"siri," G asks with a laugh, and _gosh he can see how_ _embarrassed_ _you are! He's only inches away!_  Your hands fly up as you over your face, tilting your head down, just wanting to _hide, why is there_ _no_ _where_ _to_ _hide?_ "siiiiiriiii," he practically sings in the dusky voice of his, and you feel the grip of his hands on your wrists, bringing your hands away from your inflamed skin. "why's g not with q?" 

 _"Why?"_  

"because  _u_  is  _fine."_  

 _Nooooooooooooo._ Your legs give out, leaving you to the whims of gravity and you fall to a crouch, covering every inch of your face that you can manage.  

"siri," he crouches down next to you, and you feel a gentle prod on your shoulder, then a shake. "siri? are you okay? siiiriiiii?" 

 

Several days pass and you find yourself at a familiar scene. A cozy street with the perfect amount of snow, a snowman now with several other new buddies of various sizes—one has a freakishly long neck, so long it bows over until the top of it's head hits the ground—and the presence of a certain skeleton walking up to join you at the stoop  after parking his motorcycle by the curb.  

It'd taken you all of an hour after leaving Gerson's the other day to text G back, his one sided conversation nothing but a slew of one bad "x crossed the road" joke after another. G has discovered your crippling weakness towards receiving compliments from him, but fortunately he held off on those after the last two at the shop caused you to try and "ignore" him over the phone.  

It's frustrating, yeah, receiving compliments of that caliber from someone you've fallen head over heels for, but you have to admit that it's still really damn nice, and if anything, you'll take what you can get. So you gave into his texts, as you knew you would, and this led to that, until he asked to take you to Toriel's for dinner on his motorcycle.  

It was a wonderful feeling being on the back on his ride again, and now that you find yourself knocking on Toriel's door, there's still a dumb grin on your face, your hair no doubt in shambles. But  _man_ , is it worth it. 

When the door flings itself open Undyne is there to greet the two of you with a loud "Hi, _neeerds_!"  and your smile widens, soaking up the already great atmosphere as you walk into the house. G follows after, shutting the door behind the two of you, with only the slightest brush of magic, and causing Undyne to scoff about his laziness.  

Coats, scarves, and gloves are removed, material overlapping material with the amount of clothing already hanging by the door. It's warm, and boisterous inside, Undyne's voice mixing with Alphys', and Toriel's, and there's that always present gentle lull of music in the air, blending into your skin and seeping into your bones, making you feel relaxed and at home.  

The table in the dining room is already dressed up with tableware and covered dishes of all sorts, the scents of what's hidden inside each one making your stomach grumble.  

Undyne announces your arrival, saying the "Bone heads have arrived!" And Alphys says a "H-hello!" From her chair at the table as Toriel calls out a "Good evening!" G hangs back to talk to Alphys but you continue on into the kitchen, seeing Frisk perched up on the countertop near the sink watching Toriel work her literal magic.  

It must saved a lot on bills, because when it comes to anything stove top related, Toriel just uses her fire magic, even now holding a white, ceramic container full of something yellow you recognize to be crème brulee as brown bubbles rise and harden at the top. "Finished!" Toriel beams, and Frisk applauds loudly, sending Toriel into chuckles. "Thank, thank you," she bows, careful not to drop the dish, and you can't help but laugh.  

After the completetion of the brulee everyone finds themselves at the table in short order, Frisk on one end of the table with Toriel at the next, you with G on one side and Undyne and Alphys on the other, and lastly even Flowey joining in at Frisk's side pushed up til his pot meets the edge on an old fashioned highchair sans a table.  

When the lids are removed the intoxicating aroma intensifies, platter after platter revealed, and all made of one hundred percent certified magic, so you get the closest to eating meat since even before the fake-chicken you had the first time you visited Toriel's. There's even a red wine that Toriel has saved for special occasions that she brings out, you and G declining you since you don't drink and he has a bottle of AI he's downing faster then he's touching anything on his plate. But even Frisk gets a sip, the resulting screw up of their face sending everyone in a roar of laughter. G teases Flowey about pouring some in the flower's pot, and Flowey replies scathingly, making Undyne cackle. From there the former captain and the plant monster start to trade insults, Undyne smirking the entire time until Flowey refuses to stop. 

The bottle is mostly empty when Toriel stands and shoots down whatever response the two are going to send each other, causing them to fall into silence. For a minute or two, at least.  

"So Alphys, you and the fish planning to make something of this relationship," the flower smirks, waving a leaf between the two of them. Undyne sputters in the middle of taking a sip from her glass, scales blushing purple, and Alphys squeaks into a wave of orange. "Oh, but I guess that would be a bad idea, considering how terribly fusing monsters went _last time_."  

Undyne shoots up from her chair in an instant, glare at maximum overdrive, both hands hitting the table, including the one holding her mostly full wine glass. "Listen here,  _you little shit_!" 

The glass shatters, the red liquid going with it, but there's no chance of dodging it before it lands on the food, on the wood of the table, on Alphys, Flowey, _and_ you Alphys gasps audibly at the same time that you jump up from your chair by reflex, a growing red stain spreading across your beige overshirt. 

G is up beside you, and you flush in embarrassment as his eye sweeps over you.  _God, I must look awful._  

"Shit, babe, I'm sorry!" 

"I-it's nothing, I'm okay!" 

"What? What did I do," Flowey argues, being jostled in his pot as Frisk carries him out of the room with a scowl.  

"you okay?" G asks you, and you nod after only a beat of hesitation.  

"I'm just gonna," you trail off, G nodding and getting the jist. Toriel repeats his question on your way out of the dining room when she stands, already mopping up some wine from the table with a towel.  

You ascend the stairs to the second floor as quickly as you are politely allowed to, knowing Toriel's rules about running in doors by now, and you're in the bathroom in jiff, not bothering to close the door completely after you push it and it lightly bounces of the latch.  

As you feared, you look like a mess, but luckily mostly only from your neck to your waist. There are droplets of red on your face that you wipe away with your fingers, but your shirt is a different matter.  _Gotta clean it_. 

Maybe if you wash it now, some of the red will get out? You could even put your coat back on to hide some of it... Thinking it over, it takes you few beats to get up the courage to remove the over shirt, and you pull it over your head, revealing the white tank top you wear underneath. Also ruined, but hardly a loss. It could be covered up, at least.  

After turning on the hot water, you run the stain under the water, careful not to make contact with the remaining fabric left untouched by the wine, and as you work at it, you scrub hard-" _Fuck_!" 

You flinch away from the shirt, dropping it into the sink and leaving it to soak. But your attention is on the slash of red running across two of your knuckles. Some glass must have caught onto your shirt somehow-. 

"siri?" 

G? A bit distracted, you reply, "There was glass. I accidentally cut myself." 

"lemme see," he starts, and you turn your head, any protest caught on your lips when the door swings open and G steps inside. "whoa, more skin then i've ever seen before," he chuckles, not knowing that when you start to protest, your left arm flying to your chest, it's not because you don't want to be a burden or anything. "hey, c'mon, not goin' to bite-," G says with laughter in his voice, laughter mixed with concern, with a carefulness like he's really worried that you might flinch away from his contact. Like before, in the living room downstairs, what feels like a lifetime before this one, and again at the sushi shop, when you'd refused his jacket. 

You remember the darkness of his eye sockets, the ridgid line of his shoulders, his grin failing, faltering, crumbling away.  _i_ _'m_ _sorry._ _i_ _'m_ _sorry._  

And maybe that's why you don’t stop him when he takes your arm and peels it back from your chest, his eye carefully running over the length of it, his grip on your wrist tightening as he no doubt takes in every word, from the first star, to the last letter. 

 _*sorry,_ _he's_ _been going_ _mutts all day_  

There's silence, and then the pressure on your pulse vanishes.  

One moment G is there, and the next he isn't.


	15. Of Reason and Thought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one might seem a bit dull, but it has bits throughout that'll be important in the long run.  
> This chapter was inspired by the song "Colors" by Halsey, and the bit at the end was written to "Memory", from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack. I very much recommend that one.

_The feeling is sudden and stifling, a sock to the chest-what the hell is that? I can’t breathe, and bend over, my bones brushing his as he lays in my arms._  

“ _L-look! It’s sunlight!”_  

“… _it’s beautiful.”_  

 _The dawn is bright and beautiful over the horizon, like a hole punched into the surface of the sky, red and orange bleeds from the edges of the sun into the dark._  

“ _you see it? it’s there, just like you said_ _.”_  

 _He says nothing, does nothing, but I can imagine it, smiling for all the world to see. It’s still there, that pressure in my chest, and my eyes skate the horizon, looking for_ _something. Then it clicks, like a_ _theorem_ _finally solved, the last pair of numbers falling into place, an answer given that causes a wave of emotion to wash over me: bewilderment, joy, and a_ _deep ache in my bones_ _that nearly sends me to my knees._  

When you startle awake with a gasp, your Soul is still fluttering beneath your rib cage, pushing against the shell of your body and begging to be released. You can see it in your head, the horizon of Ebott City and the surrounding land sweeping before him, and that pain filling his core.  

The dream had never lasted so long that you would know about it, how he felt that morning, but it was there, it happened, and if only you had known. A hint of cold creeps in under the blanket as you wind yourself tighter into the ball of self-loathing you've become since last night when he just left you standing there in Toriel's bathroom.  

 _Why didn't he say anything?_ _Anything could have been better_ _than_ _that._  

Screaming, some sort of vocal denial, even a shrug or  _something._ You would have thought before that anything would have been better, but G's sudden disappearance was an outright slap in the face. It left questions, worse, it left you behind to make excuses in the hopes that he would come back.  _Maybe he's_ _afraid,  like_ _I was_ _? Maybe it just took him by surprise!_  

 _How could it take him by surprise if his Soul has been telling him the truth the entire time, as mine has been?_  

 _I don't know, maybe it's different with monsters._  

 _But nothing I've heard so far would say otherwise. Not what I've heard from Toriel, or Alphys, or_ _Undyne_ _..._  

 _Stars,_ _the others_ _._  

When G had disappeared from the bathroom that night you had stood there staring at the door as it slowly dawned on you what had just happened exactly. You turned to the sink and stuck your hand under the still running water, the sting of your open cut making you blink and dislodge the tears that had come unbidden without your notice. You made a sound of distress, painful to even your ears, but tried to ignore them. The sink was filling with your shirt clogged in the drain as it was, and you pulled it out, maybe too quickly, as some water got onto the floor. 

The sink guzzled the excess water greedily, and you stood staring at your sweater in your hands. The red wasn't too bad. It had become a little thinner, maybe. You could see color under the wine stain, light from the bulbs above the mirror filtering through the drenched material easily enough. Maybe there would be something you could do to save it, to make up for it, to, to. 

You had to sit down, clutching the shirt in one tight grip and effectively wetting one leg of your pants when you sat down on the edge of Toriel's light pink porcelain tub. Your other hand went up and tried to cover the sob that tried to escape.  

He saw, he saw,  _he saw and he just left?_  

"Hey, lovebirds, what's takin' so long," you heard Undyne's voice from behind door, still half-open from G's entrance, as well as the accompaniment of her footsteps up the stairs. Hearing them on the wood had sent a shock of fear through your system, and you jump up to shut the door completely. You couldn't let her see you like that, not after what had happened, not after G had-. 

"Jones?" Undyne caught the door just as you had begun to close it, and her eyes met yours, suddenly shifting from a teasing annoyance, to surprise. "Hey, what's wrong?" 

You tried to make a noise of reassurance, to presuade her to leave so you could clean up and get a hold of yourself, but nothing came out when you opened your mouth, and she shoved the door open the rest of the way. "What happened? Where's G?" 

You tried to speak again, and you didn't care how pathetic you sounded when you replied: "He  _saw_  them, Undyne," you said, the monster watching your movements as you gestured at your arm, and understanding dawned right away. "My Words, _he saw them_ and he,  _he_ -."  

"What did he do," she was really, really angry at that point, hissing through her nearly clinched teeth. 

"H-he, he's gone. He just _left,_  Undyne." 

At that point you couldn't hold it back anymore, you just  _cried_. You cried when Undyne hugged you to her chest, and when Toriel appeared in the doorway of the bathroom asking what the matter was with worry brimming in her eyes. You cried when she crushed you to her chest, mummering things about how "it would be okay, G may just need time, he knows what what's this doing to you." And he had to know, because you were Soul Mates, and any serious thing he felt you would as well. But that just made it worse because even once everyone had coddled you and Undyne had threatened G's life thrice over and you found yourself in the nest of blankets and pillows Toriel for you on the couch to use as a bed so you didn't have to go home in the state you were in G didn't return.  

He didn't text or call then, or during the time you spent getting a ride home the next morning with Frisk holding your hand in the back seat, or even as you shut the door to your empty apartment and started crying again. Not knowing what to do with yourself or wanting BP to see you in such a state, you had fled to your room and hid in your bed.  

You remained there even as the morning wore into the afternoon and the light on your phone began to blink green with unread messages. It buzzed more than a few times, someone calling for any number of reasons, but at that point you had become too afraid to see if any of it was from G or not. He hardly seemed like the type to let you down via phone, but really what did you know about G? He didn’t seem like the type to leave you high and dry in a bathroom, bleeding and alone, but who are you to guess?  

 _I'm his Soul Mate_ _, that's who I am_ _._  

You stayed in bed, falling asleep and waking up waking at random, only to relize what had happened all over again, and all the while you kept having the same dreams over and over again. Dreams that were about that first morning when the monsters stepped out onto the Surface and your Soul pulled you from your bed, calling out for something you didn’t understand. But there were nightmares too, ones about G turning on you in the bathroom, mocking you, laughing at the very idea that  _he_ would ever want  _you_  as a partner.  

It was terrible and weak of you, but no amount of reassuring yourself made you feel better.  

Your phone goes off from beside your ear, a trill of a xylophone meant to mimic the clattering of bones making you jolt. It's your alarm. It was in a brief moment of guilt fueled responsibility during the night before that you had told yourself to plug in your phone so you wouldn't miss your notification to wake up for work.  

Work, you have to go to work. You have to get out of bed, and brush your teeth, and get dressed, and go to Gerson's and stand behind the counter as lunch ticks by and watch as G never shows up to see you. The very thought of waiting for nothing makes you  curl into yourself even more, hurt swimming along your nerves like quick electricity.  

 _I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to._  

 _"Jones?"_  

You immediately go still, flinching when BP knocks on your bedroom door from the other side. When had he come home from Fredericks? Of course, he has work, too. He must have come back from his weekend sleepover while you were asleep a moment ago. You don't want him to see you like this, but your alarm must have tipped him off that you're here, because he doesn't leave. _"I'm coming in."_  

A short second after his warning your bedroom door opens, BP's following footsteps padding across the floor towards your bed. You don't even twitch when he sits down on the side of your bed, the additional weight as slight as it is pulling you in his direction. 

"I heard about what happened from the fish," he begins, but there's no ounce of bitterness in his voice from this. You'd told him nothing about that night, but really you haven't eaten anything let alone talked to anyone about anything for that matter. "I know why you didn't say anything, Jones. It's just like I said at the bar, you're such a freaking martyr." There's a beat of silence and BP sighs. "When I get my hands on that walking piece of lab equipment—no, I saw that," he cuts off the reply you start to give, shifting under the blanket as you try to think of something to say in G's defense. He plants a hand on the other side of you, next to your back, and speaks down to your covered head. "Being a Soul Mate exempts you from excuses,  _he knows what he did, Jones_. Don't  _defend_ him!" Silence only greets him as a reply. You don't know what to say to this that your own brain hasn't shot down already. 

BP removes his hand, the distribution of weight shifting again. "I called into work-." 

" _BP._ " 

"Don't " _BP"_  me," he teases you in the best imitation of your voice he can muster, which is almost frighteningly on point.  _Actors._  "I suggest you do the same. Tell the old man you're sick. Given the shitty weather outside he should believe it. It's so cold in here and how weak you humans are, it's probably true, too." With this he must stand up, because his weight disappears, the bed complaining briefly at the release, and his footsteps let you know that he's made his way over to the door again. Your doorknob is jostled, the door squeaking slightly on it's hinges, but it doesn't close right away, and when BP speaks it's low, quiet. "I don't know why he left you, Siri... But you deserve better than that." 

The door is shut with a soft click, and BP's steps move down the hall until you can't hear them. The quiet is heavier now that he's left you, and there's a lump in your throat that threatens to break you all over again, but it's not just due to G this time.  

BP is such a damn good friend, the best you've ever had in your life, hands down. He's moody and stubborn, but he's a sharper tack then anyone like Mettaton ever gave him credit for being. If the monster 'bot had ever given BP a real chance at stardom there's no telling how far into the business he would be by now. But instead he has you, one of the few people in the world that he can supposedly stomach.  

This little bit of information makes you feel better, not drastically so, but it allows you to sit up in bed and remove the blanket off the upper half of your body sluggishly.  _Shit_ , it's freezing! Uncomfortably aware of your breath forming in the air before you, you swing your legs over the bedside and press the heels of your palms into your eyes. The pressure makes your vision go dark, and so very aware of the wryness that has built up around your eye sockets.  

You don't leave your bed right away, but drop your hands into your lap, peering around with a ragged sniff. It's due to all the crying that you can hardly breathe, you've never really been properly sick in your life, a fact that had made your brother paranoid in the past when you never had the chicken pocks.  

 _"They can kill you_ _if you grow_ _old enough,_ _"_ you recall hearing him in that same dry, low tone of his. It said nothing of the concern he felt, but you knew how often he consulted professionals about raising a child, and the books that piled on the furniture, like quickly developing skyscrapers, your old house holding a small city's worth of knowledge.  

 _Real smooth, Lulu._ You think even now, spotting the photo frame of your brother on your bedside table. Your brother hadn't been completely tactless, but he was merciless at times when it came to certain matters. It made him appear almost heartless combined with how stone faced others thought him to be, but you always knew better.  

If Aludra were still alive he would be there beside you like BP. Maybe not with quiet so many words to share, but he'd help pull you out of bed, and into the waking world again.  

 _I don't want to leave._ Not for your sake maybe. But for BP's, and Aludra's, and the old man expecting you to be at work in a little over an hour. With this thought you pick up your phone and call Gerson's, standing up from your bed as it rings on the other end. 

Gerson picks up with a cheery "Good morning!", his pep for the new day something you've come to envy since meeting him. You say good morning back, and somewhat awkwardly go into asking for the day off on such short notice. You don't have it in you to lie to Gerson, but something about the scratchiness of your voice must tip him off that something's definitely up, because he waves off any attempt at an excuse with a grandfatherly chuckle. "Don't worry about it, Jones! I'll just have you dust the back room tomorrow to make up for it,  _kah ha ha_!" 

That little chore is bound to take hours with all the cobwebs that have accumulated in the tall corners of the store room, but you can only feel grateful for him letting you off the hook, your phone falling with your weak grip into your lap after the two of you say your goodbyes. 

 _Stars, I know such good people._ _Speaking of._  

There are texts from Undyne, Alphys, Frisk, Toriel, BP, and even Frederick. The blue monster had called you the first time on the night of the attack, an unknown number you had no face to put to until you met up with BP for lunch the day after. Frederick hasn't been the only new addition though. Cam had asked for your number in case the two of you wanted to hang out or if more trouble came up, and now your brother's disconnected line wasn't the only human owned ID in your phone anymore.  

Undyne's texts are expected, falling between angry or outright threatening to G's welfare. Alphys is more concerned with wanting to know if you're alright, the monster offering aide even though she admits she doesn’t have a lot of experience with helping others. She goes so far as to liken it to an awkard character in another anime she's watched, but just seeing how normal this of a text from Alphys improves your mood by at least a margin. 

Toriel's texts are full of motherly worry, the boss monster reminding you to eat and to not blame yourself for what happened. Like Undyne, she has no mercy to offer you about G, but that she doesn't drop any puns in an attempt to make you feel better is something you're thankful for. Frisk, on the other hand, has sent you an array of different texts, ranging from blatant attempts at flirting that would send your head spinning if you didn't know about their apparent reputation with monsters, to pictures of them simply making funny faces at their phone, a certain yellow flower pulled grumpily into their antics.  

The two of them are like night and day, Frisk the epitome of sunshine while Flowey remains a wet blanket on a cold, rainy day. It's amazing as well as hilarious seeing them together in the selfies, and when you come across a picture of Flowey and them with cat whiskers drawn onto their faces with an app, it prompts the first chuckle you've made in awhile.  

When the messages dry up you stand up from bed, leaving them answered. You can't think of anything fitting to say in response, every sentence you type a watered down version of what you could offer on any other day, and you don't want to make them worry more.  

 _Later_ , you tell yourself, and make your way over to your dresser.  

Clothing in hand you go to your bathroom and shower, whatever griminess you somehow managed to accumulate by not moving for a good tweleve hours at least washing away. You spend more time in there then what's probably necessary, but by the time you step out you feel marginally better, if not a lost. 

 _I'm going to go sit with BP,_  you tell yourself, drawing scribbles in the condensation of the bathroom mirror.   _Tomorrow I'll go to work, and then I_ _'ll come home..._ _I_ _'ll_ _baby_ _sit_ _Frisk_ _in a few days_ _..._ _That's_ _not a lot_ _._ You don't want to think about not seeing G, or how through that you wouldn't see Paps... 

 _Papyrus, not Paps. He's not my brother. He's G's, and G means no Papyrus or, or-._  You quickly scrub away the tears that build up in your eyes. This occurred to you in bed, but damn if it didn't still hurt. Just sitting next to the younger skeleton brother and reading had become such a normal routine in your life. Sure, it started with G doing it himself, and that familiarity bled into you until when you finally did it in person yourself it just came so naturally but... 

 _He's not my brother. He's not mine_.  

Huffing deeply, and then swallowing thickly, you force yourself to drop your towel to dress.  

Wearing fresh pajama pants and a tank, you shuffle out of your room several minutes later holding one of your smaller blankets, humming in appreciation as the heater clicks on and sends a fresh wave of warmth down to you from a vent in the hallways wall. It causes your nose to start running a new though, and you unapologetically swipe a smidgen away with a corner your blanket. It needs washing anyway.  

Warmth isn't all that greets you once you're out of your room. There's the smell of hot chocolate in the air, and a light is on in the kitchen, the hum of the television in the living room filling the up until then mostly empty caverns of your ears with sound. BP is by the stove dumping a ridiculous amount of whipping cream from a small container into one of the two large mugs on the counter, and his tail twitches as you lean against the fridge, letting you know that he's aware of your presence.  

"'Eeeey, Jones, I got some cream from Muffet's, so it's totally safe. Dunno what you're missin' opting out for the human stuff, but it's your loss," he states, but there's no sign of the "human kind" you know that typically comes in a Getta' Wip can, so you know he's using the same as you are. "How much you want-." 

"As much as that mug can physically hold." 

BP whips his head in your direction with surprise, but a smile spreads broadly across his face almost immediately. "Alright, now that's a request I can appreciate!" Despite yourself BP's glee pulls a tired smile out of you, and you follow him willingly into the living room, both mugs still in his hands, and the tub of cream stuffed under his arm "just in case". 

You couldn't see them from the kitchen, but what greets you infront of the couch is a whole spread of goodies: cookies and crackers, popcorn and Hello! jello packs, bags of candies and— _is that a bag of jumbo_ _marshmallows_ _?_  "Oh my god, BP, what is all this?" You exclaim even as you make a grab for the fluffy white cubes, BP snickering from beside you as he goes around the other side of the couch and sits the mugs down.  

"What do you do when you get rejected? You get shit faced and you eat your weight in sugar," he replies, grinning proudly. "And since you don't drink, I just bought more sugar." 

"This is totally unnecessary," you say, crossing your legs underneath yourself and sitting heavily onto the couch. But the bag of marshmallows is already open, and you're shoving one between your teeth, saliva bursting with flavor.  _Good god this is sinful._  

"Your face right now says otherwise," he smirks, mimicking your position with his tail swishing at his side and picking up the remote from where it's wedged between his mug and a bowl of gummy bears.  

When BP turns on a movie the remainder of the morning flies by. It's an animated movie marathon, BP already knowing your love for children's flicks, but thankfully he avoids anything Kim Thorten related. Skeleton's aren't exactly on your repertoire of things you want to see right now, not exactly.  

Sometime after A Forest Story ends and just as The Needle in the Rock starts you reply to all of the messages in your inbox, sparing at least one text a piece between them all, and mostly saying the same thing: you're okay, you haven't seen G but you would rather not talk about it just yet. To Toriel you agree to watch Frisk later that week, and to Frisk you send a picture of BP with popcorn stuck to his orange fur, the monster looking in disgust as the character Sir Jay blows off Art's, the-would be boy-king, desire to be a knight.  

It's at around two-thirty and  a half before BP is due to leave for the theater for this night's showing of the play when Frederick arrives. You shrink self consciously a little into the couch when he shows up, smiling and immaculate in a button up shirt and slacks, but he does even blink an eye at the more than likely disheveled state of your appearance.  

"Sirius Jones, it's so good to see you again," he says in earnest after kissing BP at the door, the orange monster appearing meek as he closes the door behind his Mate.  

"H-hello, Frederick. It's good to see you, too," you manage, moving your legs until your feet are flat against the ground rather than in their half-asleep position under you previously, but Frederick shakes his head as he approaches.  

"No, don't get up for my sake," he says, stepping around the table and taking a seat on the other end of the couch with his back to the arm, BP disappearing into the kitchen much to your slight panic. "I know you told me in your text that you were fine, but I couldn't help but be worried despite that." 

"You're doing it again," BP says, returning to the living room with a glass of F8 in his hands. He climbs over the back of the couch, watching the glass so it doesn't spill, and hands it to his boyfriend, who greets him with a smile. "Being all mushy and  _nice_." He takes an unorthodox seat on the table, shoving food around until there's room cleared, propping his feet on the couch-space between you and Frederick. His close proximity eases some comfort back into your otherwise straightened back.  

"Given the bountiful feast spread around you, I hardly think you can't say the same," Frederick counters smoothly with his normal smile, before turning serious again. "G hasn't come to see you." 

Is it really that obvious? Is it the bags under your eyes? The state of dress you're still in despite the hour? "No." 

"And you haven't talked about it." 

Now this perplexes you a little, but you suppose after a second that if you aren't a wailing mess in your room, this  too, must be plain as day. "...no, we... we haven't," you reply, bringing the blanket on your shoulders in closer to yourself.   

"Then, I suppose that's how it is," Frederick says, closing his eyes briefly, and BP squints at him oddly: "How what is," he asks between a mouth of popcorn, his cheeks puffed out almost comically. 

"If everything you told me is as it happened," Frederick replies, opening his eyes again as he addresses BP. "Then G is frightened." 

Frederick begins patting BP on the back when the orange monster starts coughing around his mouth of food, but you're in a state no different then your best friend is. G?  _Afraid_? Sure, you've seen concerned before, nervous even, albeit maybe only once,  _maybe_  twice. Fear though is even far rarer for the skeleton to display, and you can hardly imagine why he would be scared of  _you_.  

Unless, of course, it's no different than you were afraid showing him your Words to begin with, and why you assumed that he left you behind to begin with: you were scared that you didn't deserve him.  

But that couldn't be it. Now with someone like _G_.  

Frederick is smiling again, insistence brimming in his eyes, "BP told me all about how you two were together before. The nights spent together at his home, how he defended you at the bar, the flirting in front of Gerson's the other day-." 

"Flir— _how did you know about that_?" And you would hardly call it flirting! You were making terrible jokes, and yeah... sure G countered with some of his own that might be taken that way, but he didn't mean it, not like  _that_.  

"GD," Frederick responds simply, BP nodding quickly in affirmation, more than willingly to give the monster dog some of the blame in this. "You'll learn that us actors are nothing but a big bunch of gossipers, basically all of us monsters are, in fact-."  

"Hundreds of years under the earth with nothing new to talk about does that," BP mutters darkly, popping a tiny neon green bear into his mouth.  

"But no one would act that way if they weren't invested," Frederick continues, unbothered by BP's interruption.  

"That didn't stop him from hauling ass out of there," BP argues, dropping a few bears onto the floor in the process. _He's right._  

"Sweetheart, what did you do when you found out that we happen to be Mates?" 

"Uh...," BP suddenly turns sheepish, and your eyes widen, taking in his fluttering tail before he sees that you've noticed and takes it between his hands. "We, kinda, knew each other. Before." 

"Yes, at school," Frederick agrees, smiling more so when he sees your interest. "We went to the same classes held at the library in Snowdin, but his mother and mine knew each other before then," he says. "We grew up playing with the same people, although he was still a grouch even back then." 

"Haha," BP mutters lightly, rolling his eyes in faux-exasperation.  

"Even then I felt a sort of connection with him, a constant need to spend time with him and be friends, but our clans lived separately from one another, and he was a loner," Frederick goes on, and you're soaking all of this information up greedily, more then willing to learn about one of your favorite people while avoiding the perplexing thought of G being self-conscious about you. Sure you had considered it previously, but it still seems so impossible! 

"It wasn't until we were young adults though that I began my pursuit in earnest," Frederick's eyes are shining, and BP is embarrassed all over again, his arms crossed over his chest and tail flickering after having been released. You don't think he's even noticed it doing it again. "I had my stand, and he was working for Metatton, but I'd visit him every other with Nice Cream. It took him a while to notice that my written notes about his good looks sending my Soul into a frenzy was a Nice Cream compliment meant for him alone." 

BP grumbles from between the two of you as Frederick looks on in adoration, and you know that your roommate must be turning red underneath all that fur of his.  

"Still, BP took every chance to avoid me when he could, and it only grew worse after I confessed," Frederick shakes his head, feigning a woe-is-me sigh, and BP sputters in response.  

"You forgave me for that!" 

"And I still love you for it," Frederick hums in response, shutting BP up immediately, and the monster jerks his legs from the couch, crossing them beneath him on the table while he settles into a pout that makes Frederick laugh. Your Soul aches just watching them, your fists tightening their hold on the edges of your blanket.  

"The thing is, he was afraid to get to know me," Frederick goes on, his eyes saddening despite the smile he still wears. "He never thought he was enough, me the monster that liked making others smile because it made me feel wanted and secure," he says, crossing one leg beneath him and gripping the knee of his other with his hands, placing his chin atop them and watching you with his gaze remaining steady. "He ran even after seeing me chip my tooth on a sandwich in school, even when he's seen me in braces and tights and even after I managed to freeze a note into a Nice Cream, which led to some poor old woman nearly choking-," BP let's out a barely concealed laugh in the form of a cough, but Frederick doesn't waver. " And not knowing that for me, for my Soul, he has been more than enough since we were Separated thousands of years ago." 

This is apparently too much for BP, who stands up and walks out of the room, taking the mugs with him but pointedly looking at neither of you. But he's stiff as a board, and you know that in a few weeks, if you're ever okay about your Soul hurting as it is, you'll have something to pester him about. Frederick's eyes return from watching with fondness as BP left.  

"I don't know G as I know my Soul Mate, but if I've learned anything over the years from watching my friends fall in love around me and strangers meet at my cart, it's that people are easily intimidated by those they find to be most dear in their life," Frederick says as softly as ever, and you drop your eyes to examine the stitching on the couch, your thought process already deepening. "I'm guessing G is no different." 

"Should I...s-should I just forgive him, then?" 

"Oh, by no means!" 

You head snaps up, you honestly not expecting this in the least bit, and in such a cheery voice, no doubt! 

"At least, not right away," Frederick corrects himself, although you're still caught off guard. "It hurt that G left you, and he hasn't contacted you, even if as a Mate he should be more than aware of your state. This may be a thrilling, and completely worthwhile relationship to enter, Sirius Jones, but you're still a person. You have feelings as he does, and you're allowed to be as angry, and upset about it as you so desire," Frederick assures you, straightening up and locking his ankle between his hands, almost appearing whimsical despite the conversation. "But give him time. Time to think about it, to stew, and, hopefully, to work up the courage to talk to you about it. And if he doesn't come to you," he says leaning in closer to you, and you're afraid that you already know what he's going to say. "You go to him. Because you deserve answers, and nothing is more disappointing them leaving someone behind without knowing all the facts." 

 

After Frederick's advice is given, BP rushes to throw on some outdoors appropriate attire, as well as his coat. The two of them say goodbye to you at the door, pecking you on the forehead, a sort of distance between his body and yours since he's wearing something with smoke clinging to it. As he hangs out in the hall, Frederick says one last line in parting. "Whatever you decide to do, no matter what I, or anyone else does, it's up to you in the end, Sirius," he says, and you shuffle in place, awkward all over again. "But I'll be rooting for you," he finishes with honesty, and moves forward to give you a friendly hug before ducking out into the hall.  

You close the door behind them, contemplating it's wooden surface before you force yourself to move away. There are still snacks left on the table, although it's been partially cleaned. The TV is waiting to be turned on again and watched, and there's plenty more cocoa in the cabinets. But you can't build up the confidence to walk over and sit down again. Giving into weakness, you turn and walk down the hall to your room, unsuprised when a furry white lump is waiting with his tail swishing on your bed spread. 

"Hey, AD."  

The dop yips, more squeaker toy then monster, and you walk over, flopping down beside him with little ceremony. When you curl up the dog forces it's way between your head and legs, and you sigh into the side of his neck, already combining your fingers through his fur. Sleep is far away, and you're afraid that you have a lot to think about.  

 

The next morning you wake up feeling like a zombie that either ate too little or far too much. After BP had left the afternoon before, you'd zoned out for hours, dipping in and out of sleep as well as the remainder of your apartment. But no easy answer came to you, and although you had no desire to leave the house, being alone didn't make you feel any better. 

So it's with a mixed batch of reluctance that you dress up and go to work this morning, BP still being the shining star he is by offering a ride, but you decide to actually turn him down. Time alone in a bus full of people feels strangely appealing, and even the fresh, biting air of the outside clears your senses to some extent.  

The bus stop near you apartment is crowded, the inside of the vehicle no better when it shows up, but after a few stops you snag a window seat to watch the world go by through. You should be taking this time to think so more, but in your dazed state, every passing shop and road sign is leagues more interesting then anything your still have asleep brain can come up with.  

When you arrive at work, the shop is open as expected, Gerson puttering about behind the counter, and there are already a few faces hanging out in a few rows near the door.  

"Good morning," you say to him airily, nodding with a poor version of a smile to one of the monsters as you walk around the counter when they wave amabily from beside the front most aisle. "New geodes," you mention aloud as you spot the shining chunks of rock inside.  

"Brought up from my collection," Gerson confirms with a nod. "Bit harder to replicate, but in this case, the original is always best. Look here," he comes up beside you, pointing at one particular piece, it's shimmering blue insides laid bare to the light flooding in from the storefront window. "Remind you of anyone?" 

"G," you reply simply, the sight of the blue reminding you of his eye. "It reminds me of G." 

Gerson chuckles, drawing your perplexed attention to him, which he smiles up brightly. "Not only of G, but yourself as well. Your Soul shines the same color, after all," he says, not heeding the bewilderment on your face, and walking towards the back room. You follow after a pause, trying to get what he's saying. "Our Souls have a color?" 

"Exactly," he says, humming thoughtfully as he circles around the table to a book already laid out on it's surface. "That I haven't mentioned it yet surprises me. Old age, as you know," he winks at you, and opens the book, skimming the pages briefly. "Souls like magic take on various colors, and every creature that practices the art of the latter is better skilled in magic that shines the same as their Soul," he says, turning the book around for you to see. On the worn page is a heart, drawn in the same shape you learned years ago while watching television or spending time with other children. Or maybe it was the result of being exposed to Valentine's Day, considering how much your mother adored the holiday? You really don't know when you started drawing hearts that way, but everyone did it.  

Echoing out from the picture on the page is a rainbow of colors, framing the heart like a silhouette of light, and on the remainder of the page, as well as the one next to it, is a scrawled, hand written language you recognize from scribbles from Gerson's personal ledgers. 

"The colors each correspond to a trait, and each Soul has a primary Soul color, a secondary color, and several, smaller, miscellaneous colors. Finally, for each color there inlays a trait," he instructs you, tapping the colors along the heart as he goes. "Purple for Perseverance, Blue for Integrity, Teal for Patience, Green for Kindness, Yellow for Justice, Orange for Bravery, and Red," her taps the final gradient of color. "Detrimentation. An inherently human trait, and, sadly, one monsters sorely lack in significance." 

"It's blue," you say, examining the slow change from red to blue to teal around the heart. "Integrity. Moral uprightness." 

"Precisely," Gerson says with a nod, closing the book again. "And often blue Souls are drawn to music and dance." 

You hum briefly at this, a memory occurring to you. "I...I wanted to be a ballet dancer for a while as a kid," you comment, Gerson glancing at you curiously from the corner of your eye. "Too clumsy." 

Gerson chuckles in his throat again, and although you don't know why, you don't question it, following him back towards the front of the shop but stopping to remove your old coat to hang it by the door. G's was at home on your desk chair, untouched since the other night when you'd pulled it roughly from your shoulders and tossed it onto the seat.  

"What did you mean by determination being inherently human?" 

"As my kind is known for their innate generosity," he says with a wiggle of his shoulders, prompting a breath of laughter from you. "Humans hold within them an extraordinary amount of what you would call Determination. A powerful force that has helped your kind evolve, and thrive on this planet with an unrivaled stubbornness," he says, walking around to the front of the counter. You take your customary seat behind the register, watching him advidly. Heart break or no, there's nothing better to keep your mind off of things then learning about monsters and magic.  

"It's one of the reasons why during the war humans were so difficult to stand against. It seemed as though no matter how many people you all lost, or how weak you became, you humans always managed to pull out a shred of that furious confidence from the depths of your being and use it to fight on to the bitter end," he says this not with any sort of bitterness himself, but with an awe that gleams brightly in his old eyes.  

You've learned this quickly about Gerson, that he doesn't allow himself to brood in the past if it hampers his out look on the future.  _"_ _Just another way your enemies learn to break you, years after only their memory remains_ _."_  

 _I could use some confidence,_ you think to yourself, bitting at your lip wistfully. 

Sometime around eleven the number of people in the show doubles, and then triples. With the attack the other day and all the attention the shop had received, it had only helped Gerson's name spread further. There's even a greater number of humans show up to peruse the shelves, and Gerson is tickled pink. As for yourself, the brooding period you had scheduled for lunch never comes, the amount of customers distracting you to no end. Workers and tourists show up during their lunch break, teenagers after school has let out, and all in all it does really slow down until around five. At that point you have to fulfill your promise to Gerson to clean out the back room, but thankfully the webbing on the ceiling is old and gray, heavy with dust.  

You don't want to think of how G would laugh at you for being paranoid about sweeping up a spider monster while cleaning. The thought of his accompanying snigger shoots a crack of pain across you Soul, and you sigh from atop a ladder propped against a wall.  

You'd rather not think of G at all.  

 

 _He_ _hums and he paces._  

 _His footsteps light on the flat, chilly floor, steps like_ _one...two_ _..._ _three...four_ _across lines cut into squares the way he likes them. His chest is flat and big, big enough for your head to fit just right, you face nestled into his coat, your_ _fist_ _cling_ _ing to the collar._  

 _The rumble in his chest is nice, soothing, reminding you of a time long before this one. You don't know how long, but when he carries you like this he's calmer_ _than_ _normal, and you can't help but enjoy it_ _and how right it is._  

 _You're small, much smaller then him, but maybe some day you can grow taller, taller maybe then he'll ever be, and carry him the same way. You_ _laugh_ _in your throat at the thought of his legs swinging in the air, his eyes closed like yours are, and feeling just so warm and safe and small._  

 _His hand on your back rubs softly against your shirt, a pause in his voice telling you that he heard you, before it begins again._ _There's a smell in the air, the smell of smoke and ash. An odd stir-up that makes you complain lightly. Is he_ _thinking_ _bad thoughts again?_  

 _But he doesn’t rub your back again, to quiet the concern in your Soul, and you try to open your eyes, sleep weighing them down. Distantly you hear something, someone calling. Should you know them? Who are they? You try to move, but it's like your weighed down, his arms around you, no harder_ _than_ _before, but keeping you saying anything out loud._  

 _Who is that? Who is that?_  

 _But he can't hear you, and he doesn’t stop._  

 _H_ _e only_ _hums, and he paces._  

 

It's warm. It's strangely easy to open your eyes, as if you've been trying for hours to no avail, but then it just happens. Breathing in the smell of the sheet pressed against your cheek, your eyes move in the dark. It's late, too late. Why are you awake? 

There's a smell, one that makes your nose wrinkle, your brow furrow, and you sit up slowly in bed, sniffing the air. And then there's something else, a yelling? Who's yelling? Is there a fight going on-. 

The screech of an alarm tears through the atmosphere, startling you in your bed and sending your heart into a nauseating ride of palpitations.  _What the hell?_  The yelling picks up, but you're standing from your bed, realizing just how  _warm_  it's become. It's not warm, it's freaking  _hot_  in here, and that smell-.  

Your bedroom light refuses to turn on, but when you push open your bedroom door, you don't need your eyesight to see what's going on, the smoke that's engulfing the remainder of your apartment gives it away. 

The complex is on fire. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was meant to end differently, but it was taking awhile to write, and I think I like where it cut off.


	16. Of Warmth and Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the stars, I think this might be the longest chapter to date. 
> 
> It was inspired by the song "Terror", from the Bloodborne Original Soundtrack, "Love Like You" and "I'm Still Here", from the show Steven Universe, "Only the Winds" by Olafur Arnalds, "Rem" from the Death Note soundtrack, and finally "Sneeuwland," by Oskar Schuster.

When you first begin coughing it never ends, the heat of the unseen fire and the presence of smoke burning your eyes. You latch a hand over your nose and mouth, trying to hold back what you can, and back up into your room again, closing the door behind you.  

Panic is flooding through your system quicker then you can think properly about what's going on, and you hesitate dumbly for a moment before the coughing threatens to turn into a fit.  

 _What do I do? What do I do?_  

You see it across the room, the window! Darting over with a tightness in your throat already hinting at what would happen if you take too long, you fumble to unlatch the sill upon reaching it. When the pair of doors swing open a rush of the heat inside floods out, the intensity of it greater now that you can feel the cold of the outside on your front.  

There are people down below, monsters and humans crowding around on the open street, and from where you stand, you can see the lick of flames down below.  

They flicker from open and broken windows, a shattering of glass giving away from one near yours that causes you to tense.  

The people are yelling, crying out, pointing: "There's more up there!" even as others still run from the entrance to the complex.  

"I'm-!" you start to yell, but your own hacking cuts you off, a weakness in your legs sending you to your knees as you hang on to the pane with one hand. Still coughing, you glance blearily around the room, the unreal sight of paint peeling off the walls sending a shock through your system, and in another room something collapses.  

It's the adrenaline that surges through your system that gives you strength to steady yourself, still clutching at the window. I have to find, to find-. Still bent over, you scramble towards your desk chair, scrabbling for the jacket still in it's seat, and pull it weakly onto your shoulders, slipping your bare arms into the sleeves in a vain hope to protect your skin and pulling up the hood-. 

The smoke is too much. It's smothering you.   

You can't breathe. You can't get up.  

A darkness rises up around your vision, tunneling it slowly into a dim point of light, taking your awareness with it.  

   
_Their body breaks the surface before yours does, but it doesn't lessen the impact, and you feel yourself swallowed whole. It covers your eyes,_ _rushes_ _into your mouth, smothers you completely, making you_ _weightless even as it drags you down and_ _holds t_ _ight, tighter, tighter, the light_  

 _fading (Please help)_  

 

 _fading (Please)_  

 

 _fade..._ _ing_ _(P_ _le_ _..._ _ase_ _)_  

 

It's in a burst of oxygen that you're brought back, the darkness of the night too bright, so bright 

"Hold them down!" 

Something tightens around your arms, your legs, _let me go let me go_  

"It's okay, you're okay," someone says close to you and you're coughing, your body sucking in as much of the clean air as it can manage while expelling the bad, you're eyes filled with tears, and your body simultaneously feeling light and heavy at the same time.  

Through your clouded vision you see movement, the lights, a face as someone bends over you, hands pressed against your skin, the surface holding you up shifting in place. It's cold,  _so cold,_ and it's that chill that brings you down to Earth, settling your senses while your heart prattles on.  

The person shines a light in your eyes, holding open your eyelids, first one pair then the other, with thick, glove covered fingers. "Blood pressure high, damage to outer surface area minimal, lungs functioning properly—Here, watch my finger," the EMT tells you, holding an index finger, and you track it from side to side as you've been taught through movies and your few checkups at the doctor's office.  

"Good," they nod, and back away, revealing the wide sweep of stars above. People are talking, someone is crying out, and there's a siren wailing in the distance, growing fainter and fainter. The crowd isn't too close to the ambulance behind your gurney, but it feels as though they're pressing too close, and you need to sit up. 

"Whoa, whoa," the medical technician bounces back to your side, placing a hand on your back and watching your carefully as you move, but not fighting you either. You bend over on the gurney, removing the mask from your face to cough anew, the heat of your own breath uncomfortable against your face. "Hey, c'mon," the person chides you calmly, and replaces the mask when you finish, urging you gently back down.  

Your bones ache, a pulse beating a painful beat between your ears, and the thick dryness in your mouth refuses to let up. You can feel the gurney moving again, another EMT having joined the first beside you. You meet their face briefly, your attention fluttering away, beyond their shoulder, to the monsters around you. Tear streaked, fearful, some even angry, they meander in front of the still glowing remains of your home. Jets of water stream upwards from places in the crowd where the firemen must be doing their jobs, but they're already come to late. You knew that while you were still inside. Your home is gone.  

Your Soul quivers within you, the pressure of it so constant up until this moment that you never realized that it has been trying to break lose, and in a parting of people, you see him. Just for an instant, the moment too short before your line of sight is interrupted by the inner walls of the ambulance, and it's doors are shut.  

 

There's a white ceiling above you, large perfectly shaped squares made out of tile and placed in long rows you find strangely appealing. When you blink and shift your weight, a grainy plastic against your skin, covering your body from the stomach down, shifts with you and crinkles softly.  You're tired,  every inch of your body feeling heavy and useless, but your desire to roll over and rest is interrupted by the very obvious fact as to where you are. 

Hospitals are much like Whole-Marts, from the moment you enter to the time you leave time seems to stand still. 

It's always chilly, the temperature kept the same no matter the time of year. There's always the constant background noise of elevator doors dinging and rumbling open, the beeping of monitors, the steps of work shoes across the cool floors, and  the ringing of telephones waiting to be answered. Everyone is always too quiet, even if it's a necessary quiet, but when you finally break down and cry out no one seems to hear you.  

When you finally leave, it always seems as though whole days may have well have passed, because the hour is always much later then when you went in and you always feel a sense of detachment as you go. 

You know the feeling of hospitals, even if you've been in them perhaps only twice in your in life: when you were born, and when your brother died. You were of course too young to be left with much of an impression for the first, but the second made up for it.  

From the looks of it, you're in the emergency room. There's a curtain a few feet from both sides of the bed, one pulled back to reveal a bed currently not being used. At the end of your own is a large, open walkway, and nearby on the other side you peek a counter with several nurses sitting behind it.  

The mask you were wearing in the ambulance is long gone, but near your head is a IV stand with an accompanying bag of fluid hooked up to a drip that leads into a tube that snakes it's way down and into your arm. Seeing the separate swatches of tape that holds the needle buried into your skin does not provoke a sense of comfort from you, and you shiver uncomfortably, glad at least you weren't awake for the thing to be stuck inside you.  

Propping yourself up with the pillow that had been behind your head, you wince as a bubble of air works its way up from your stomach and causes you to begin coughing, immediately catching the attention of one of the nurses at the station. They glance at you only momentarily before picking up something hidden out of view at first until the phone is raised to their ear. A few quick words later, and they're standing up, their walk short but brisk when they make their way over to your bed.  

"Hello, dearie, are you feelin' okay?" They ask, opening up the other curtain beside your bed so it's less intrusive to their movements then checking on the drip. 

"Y-yeah-." Holy cow, is that your voice? It was like you'd spent your entire life smoking in a desert and all prior to having recently found yourself in a barn fire! In short, it's pretty bad.  

"That's good, 'course with your vitals, it’s amazing that you had to come in here at all," the nurse says, moving to the end of your bed to pick up a clipboard that has been hanging there without your noticing it. "Healthy as a damn horse, I'd say," they comment, flipping over one of the papers for only a brief examination. "We looked over your records. With that kind of track sheet, your doctor outta be proud." 

"Thanks?" You say, not really knowing what else  _to_  say, but  the nurse isn't bothered.  

They tuck the clipboard back into place and wave a hand in the air. "It's amazing considering the state of those friends of yours. 'Bout ready to wake up the entire damn hospital, it's amazing you don't get into any trouble yourself." They move over to the other side of the bed and began working with a mechanism on it's side, the upper portion raising to support your back without the need of the pillow, and they miss the wide eyed expression on your face.  

Wait, friends? Were the others here? 

"I'll go get 'um and tell 'um you're awake, you sit tight," they point a manicured nail in your direction and then shuffle away at a leisurely pace. 

Despite how slowly the nurse walked away, the others show up in less than a handful of minutes, Undyne skittering to a stop at the end of your bed with her mouth wide in exclamation. "Jones, you're alive!" 

You can't help but attempt a laugh at her reaction, but your poor throat stops you from making anything but a weak huff, and so do Undyne's rippiling arm muscles when she shoots over and wraps them around you. Quick behind her girlfriend, Alphys arrives, standing beside your bed with the sides of her face in her hands. Frisk and Toriel are there as well, the tyke climbing up onto the bed as the nurse tuts in the background. Toriel is positively beside herself, fretting with every inch of you that she can reach, from tucking some of your fraying hair behind your ear to fixing the thin blanket on the bed.  

But it's BP that shows the most emotion out of everyone. Wearing sneakers, a tank top, and old jeans, when he arrives after the queen he hesitates by her side, Frederick at his elbow with a wane but grateful smile. BP's face is stoic, restrained, but only until his lover touches his elbow gently, then he breaks, moving around the queen and Alphys in a rush.  

His arms encircle and grip you hard, the weight of him pushing you into the bed, but your arms are just as tight around him in turn. You bury your face into his orange neck, a sigh escaping your lips when a comfort settles in that you've been missing since you woke up to the fire.  

" _Jooones,"_ BP speaks into your neck, and there's a warble there he's terrible about hiding, causing you to release a shuddering breath of your own. "Why do have to get in so much trouble?"  

You laugh shakily, his hair tickling you in the process, "I-I don't know. I can't help it." 

"Well, _stop_ ," he hisses, backing away but not fully letting go just yet. His eyes are red, and he's not crying, but you can see the tears he's holding back, making you smile regretfully but with a warmth inside you that glows pleasantly.  "I'm losing lives being your roommate."  

"I thought you said you lost all of your extra ones working for Metatton?" 

"Well," his eyes dart away uncertainty, to the side, your blanket, and back again. "Coming to the Surface and meeting certain people, it helped me realize I might still have more in me then I thought," he gives a shrug with one shoulder, smiling along with the motion, and you let out an ugly half-laugh, half-sob kind of thing.  

BP gives you some space and steals a round spinny seat to sit in beside your bed after that, and the monsters hang around to belay the news of what exactly happened. 

"Some asshole attacked the complex from the inside," Undyne says frankly, prompting an instant " _What_?" from you. She's no happier than the others, her arms crossed over her chest as Alphys and Toriel appear forlorn, Frisk frowning quietly at the end of the bed. "They pretended to be some poor sap's friend, a Whimsun by the name of Eolande. They worked their way into their life, then their home, and they set a fire with some alcohol and some fucking matches," she practically spits, Alphys not bothering to try to soothe her, the yellow monster's jittery shoulders giving away that she's barely keeping her own emotions in check. 

"What...what about the Whimsun," you ask, and Undyne's expression falls, the monster reluctant to meet your gaze. "Eolande?" Do you have the name right? Undyne grumbles under her breath, but it's Toriel that responds. 

"They didn't make it," she says wistfully, appearing older than you've ever seen her. "The other tenants never saw them leave the building, but it was confirmed that the Fell at the scene of the crime." 

"By who," you ask looking between their faces, and with a creeping horror you realize that you know who. "But that's not, that's not..."  you cut yourself off, knowing it's no good to say what they're all thinking out loud. The perpetrator is still alive, they got away, meanwhile some poor Whimsun that just wanted a friend is probably still in the remains of your home. 

 _Eolande? Eolande, I could have known them. They could have been that Whimsun at the shop, the one I didn't get to say thank you to, or talk to, or, or_  

A weight atop the bed moves until Frisk's face appears under your downcast gaze, their closed eyes and mouth set grimly. But you don't want any reassurance, and they don't give it, _because this isn't okay, nothing about this is okay._ They only reach out their arms and wrap them around your neck, the littlest pair of arms that have ever tried to comfort you, and your tears of frustration and anger and remorse wet their shoulder, your arms going up to hold Frisk back.  

The bed creaks when Toriel joins in on the hug, Alphys setting her hand on your leg from where she stands to show her support, her grip tight and her face pressed into the blanket. You can feel her fear through that small bit of contact, and your Soul shivers. 

How long before it's one of your friends that are taken instead? 

 

 _Their_ _footsteps slap across the_ _gravel_ _harsh_ _ly_ _, one head turning only_ _briefly_ _, but whatever it is they see, it's enough to send them stumbling onto the ground. Their cohort, dressed head to toe in black as they are,_ _skitters_ _to a stop in the middle of the ally way, but not because their friend has fallen. They've_ _noticed_ _one crucial detail: the dead end that waits up ahead._  

 _"It's Death," the fallen one screams_ _, pointing one hand while_ _trying to retreat backwards without bothering to stand, their fear too much for them to allow them to even think of doing so, but their friend does nothing to help them._  

 _Reaching up, you flip your hood back,_ _revealing fully_ _the sneering exterior of your skull, and the man screams again, but it doesn't stop your smooth stride in their direction_ _._  

 _"_ _you're_ _gonna wish that were true."_  

 

 _"Hey!"_  

Jerking awake, your eyes snap open in a small moment of panic. The fright fades when you see Flowey's smirking visage, a hint of amusement there in the darkness, and the vine he used to strike you retracts back into the dirt of his pot. "Are you awake yet?" 

"Yes, Flowey," you answer his rhetorical question, allowing your head to sink back into the pillow pressed against the armrest of the couch. You'd been deep in the throes of sleep a moment ago, but not to deep that you weren't aware that you had been dreaming. But what they were about, you have next to no idea, Flowey's interruption making sure of that.  

After you had been released from the hospital earlier that day Toriel had insisted that you stay at her home, an offer you had no choice to accept given your current lack of address, but admittedly one that would have been hard to refuse either way.  

Your fear of losing your home had been confirmed by your friends and then again by a news report playing on a television that hung on the  wall of the discharge room. On the screen your complex stood like a blackened husk on the backdrop of a blue, winter's sky, the state of it barely registering to you as being a very bad sign for your future. But at that point you were exhausted, emotionally and physically, so the news slid of your shoulders like oil on water.  

According to BP the owner of the complex had taken out a large enough insurance claim, and still had enough left over after all of the charitable donations they received for the remodeling of the complex previously, to fix up the damaged units in the building. In the meantime residents had to stay with friends and family, the monsters that had lived there unwilling to find a new home entirely because of how remarkable the rent had been and how much easier it was to live there in comparison to other locations. This really said something, considering what had happened, and had the most effect on you since you had stopped crying in the ER.  

BP is going to be staying with Frederick and his siblings, your roommate taking the second absolute destruction of his home and worldly possessions by a hate-mongering arsonist as well as you are. Toriel expressed some concern about you and BP's obvious states of dissociation over the whole matter but Undyne was fueled with enough righteous fury for the both of you.  

"Just who the fuck do these bastards think they are, attacking civilians in the middle of the night," she shouted in the parking garage of the hospital, her voice echoing throughout. Alphys hung by her halted position in the center of the car rows, placing a hand on her thigh that helped keep the warrior remain restrained. "Who the  _fuck_ screws over a Whimsun," she raged, the crowd of you with nothing to offer in response. You stood with your hands buried in the coat pockets of a loaner from Frederick, the monster and his boyfriend both having stated that you're "far less furry" compared to them and thus weaker to the elements of the outside. BP and Fred were next to in the lot, Toriel and Frisk having stopped nearby, the mother's car keys in hand.  

Undyne buried her face in her hands, releasing a muffled yell of frustration, a far cry from the rampage she would have gone on otherwise. Alphys remainded beside her, eyes heavy with grief and a helplessness for not knowing what to say. None of them knew what to say.  

"S-she feels personally responsible," Alphys told you later in Toriel's yard, her girlfriend having opted to stay in her beat up old truck. You  saw her over Alphys with her chin propped up in a hand on the open window of the driver's seat, her other still on the wheel, gripping the torn weather mercilessly.  

"She didn’t know anything," you muttered to your friend, not liking the idea that Undyne was blaming herself for something out of her control, but Alphys had shaken her head.  

"B-back in the Underground, it was her job to look a-after the residents outside of the Capital. Her, and the remainder of the local squadron," Alphys explained, her hands clasped together before her tightly. "Even after we left, she still th-thinks it's her duty to make sure they're okay, even those that lived outside of the area. Sh-she wants to protect all of us," Alphys' voice weakned, her chin dipping low for a moment, and raising again as your lips started to part, some lame excuse for an apology, some sort of reassurance,  _something_  half-formed in your mouth. "She thinks she failed, and we nearly lost you, as well," her voice shook, and you fell to your knees right away, wrapping your arms around her neck as her own fear failed to allow her to release the grip she had on her hands, her claws digging into her scales. " _Y-y-y-you're one of the few people who_ _c-c-c-are,_ _Sirius. Why, why does it have to be this way_?" 

You murmured fruitless words of reassurance into her ear, saying that you were alright, but you couldn't bring yourself to lie and say that everything would be fine. Because you still aren’t sure of that, even now as you lay in your temporary bed in Toriel's living room.  

Undyne had jumped out of the truck and hurried over to Alphys, joining you in trying to stop the yellow monster's tears, her girlfriend capable of saying things you couldn't even think of. Alphys had suffled to the truck, sending you a tearful wave before Undyne helped her inside, and they'd driven off shortly after. 

Toriel and Frisk had been waiting inside, the mother insistent that their child change into warm clothing. Frisk gave into her ministrations with a gentle smile, the routine of Toriel removing the layers upon layers of protection allowing another semblance of comfort into the day. 

As for yourself, Toriel had given you a bowl of magic infused broth to drink down to the last drop. It was lacking in texture, but you didn't know how hungry you had been until you finished your second helping, your usual stead fast healing allowing you to enjoy a meal that would otherwise probably still be difficult to manage.  

After that Frisk and Toriel had puttered out of the house for chores they had planned on doing on the school snow day, leaving you to sink into a much needed nap under a thick, handmade blanket.  

Opening your eyes again, you judge by the scant light that floods into the living room from the window behind the couch that it's perhaps late afternoon. Flowey is propped up on the coffee table, still scowling at you for being in his immediate vicinity more than likely, but it'd been Frisk's idea that he "watch over you" while you slept.  

"Are you going to get up or am I going to have to stuff this in your mouth," he asks, making you squint. The hell is he talking about?  

"What is it," you ask in a more patient tone then you're currently feeling. In response the flower snakes out his vine once again, but rather then use it to hit you, he reaches for something laying on the other end of the coffee table, a partially furled slip of paper he tosses into your lap that you recognize immediately.  

Sitting up with some hesitancy in your movement, you pick up the picture of your brother, confusion creeping upon you. The frame is gone, leaving the photo bare, and it's curled in on itself, a hole tinged with black hovering just above his head.  

"Where did you get this," you ask the flower and look away from the photo to him.  

His expression twists to one of askance, as if he would ever deign to do you such a favor, and then disdain. "bone breath came by while you were asleep and left it here." 

" _G was here?_ " 

"No, his brother woke up from his trauma induced coma, shifted through the rubble of your home, delivered your picture, and went right back to sleep again— _yes_ , it was G, idiot!"  

Your eyes skipped about the room, looking for some further sign that G had in fact been there.  There was his old jacket that you had flung on during the fire, now folded neatly and resting in Toriel's armchair. Toriel had offered to wash it, and you'd been reluctant at first, but with the smoke that soaked into it's fabric from the fire it had become impossible for you to wear. But save for that one reminder of him, and your picture as evidence that he had been there, which he could have only gone back to find himself or taken during the fire, there's nothing else of him in the room.  

Twice now you've been in his presence since that night, and both times you haven't been able to speak to him. Your Soul sinks low in your chest, echoing your regret. "Did, did he say anything?" 

"No," Flowey snipped, apparently irritated by that fact as much as you are upset. There's a lull in the conversation as you examine the picture, smoothing it out against the surface of the blanket, only to have the work undone as soon as you lifted your hand. At least you still have it, some reminder of your brother other than memory and a telephone number. You have others in storage, not to mention some of your older things of your parents he had never gotten rid of, but pictures of him are few and far in between.  

"Who is that, anyways?" Flowey asks this but he's not watching you, rather instead brushing a speck off of one of his leaves with the other.  

"My older brother," you answer, finding no harm in being honest with him. Flowey hums a response, but otherwise saying nothing, and becoming unreadable for a brief space of time.  

"I'm hungry." 

 

When the front door of the house opens you and Flowey are in the kitchen, the plant having coerced you into handing over a box of cookies from atop the fridge. You'd complied without arguing, not up to receiving a tongue lashing, and Flowey chokes on a bite when Toriel sweeps into the room. 

Her arms are loaded up with bags of groceries, and she waves off your offer to help, the remainder of what they had bought carried in by Frisk, holding a bushel of bananas, and surprisingly MK, a plastic bag with a single bulb of garlic within hanging from one of the spikes on their head. They gasp upon seeing you, and their face splits into a grin of pure elation only children are capable of pulling off so effortly.  

"Jones!" 

Frisk giggles at their friend's excitement, and Flowey takes the time to hide the box of cookies while Toriel unloads the groceries onto the counter top.  

"MK?" You blink, having not seen the little monster since their performance during A Midsummers Night's Dream, but you can't help but grin when they rush up to you and begin hopping in place: "Jones! Jones! Frisk told me you were here, I'm so exicted for our sleepover! We went to the store and got brownies and stuff for stew and milk and ice cream and look, look," they twist in place, showing off their tail. At the base you see a mark that you know to be a temporary tattoo of Arachnaman, his feet tucked beneath him in mid-leap, and his arm flung out in a gesture familiar to you to shoot a thread of web. "We got tattoos!"  

Frisk jumps off from their place on the countertop with a red-faced Flowey and hurries over to his friend, raising a sleeve of their shirt to reveal a bouquet of yellow flowers.  

"Those are so cool!" You exclaim, crouching down so you're at eye-level with them both, and MK's already large smile spreads further: "I know, right! And it's exactly who I wanted! Well," he sobers, considering his tattoo again, "I wanted Wombat Man more, but Arachnaman is just as cool," he finishes, meeting your eyes again, and his smile reappearing. 

"Holy cow." You drop to a crouch, the squeak in your knees something you ignore in favor of smiling as wide as you can at their enthusiasm. "I haven't seen temporaries in years" 

"We got you one, too," MK bursts out triumphantly, and Frisk removes a slip of paper from their pocket. It's a simple red heart, probably from the same machine that Frisk's came from, and they both insist on you wearing it right away. In short order you have a red cartoon heart just above the back of your wrist, and the kids are happier than ever.  

Lending Toriel a hand, you help her put away the groceries, marveling faintly at an impressively large tub of peanut butter that you find, and feeling your stomach rumble when she mentions what's for dinner: Thai peanut noodles cooked with her signature fire magic. You tried to stay to help her out, but the kids insisted that you join them in drawing in the living room and watching television instead, so she waves you off with a fond smile.  

With the Kingly Bride playing in the background three of you plus Flowey get to work scribbling on paper. Without arms of his own, MK is actually really good at using his tail as a replacement, and everything Frisk draws out is full of color and light. Flowey takes some persuasion to start drawing, but once he does he favors using black crayons on pencils, and he's pretty damn good at it, too. You recognize the quality right away from the pictures hanging on Toriel's fridge, which were rotated out each time you visited, and want to say something about it, but Flowey actually seems pretty peaceful for a change.  

As for yourself, coloring is strangely soothing. It's been years since you've picked up a crayon and really drawn anything, more inclined towards writing than anything and that you haven't done in years, but it this helps keep your mind off things for the most part.  

"Look," MK drops the blue crayon they are holding and holds up their drawing, "It's Undyne's house!" 

Frisk claps in appreciation as you marvel at what the little monster has drawn. It looks something like a fish, with windows for eyes and a shark like mouth for a door. It even has a tail that curls around it's side, and a spiked roof, and over all it's drawn rather well. "Did she really live in a fish house?" 

"Yeah," MK grins in his excitement, the admiration as clear as day as he goes on. "It was really cool! Except the last time it burnt down, they never got around to fixing it." 

Burnt down? Last time? Was this on the Surface or-? 

"You remember, Frisk," MK asks them, Frisk's smile dropping much to your curiosity as MK goes on. "Papyrus told me all about what happened, how you and Undyne-, uh." 

Wait. "Papyrus?" 

"Um, I, I mean," MK's picture drops from their tail, the monster looking to Frisk for help, but the human child perplexes you further by smiling in a way that can only be described as apologetic. 

"Papyrus told you Undyne's house burned down, and it involved Frisk," you ask slowly, the pieces lining themselves in your head, and your eyes widen as you realize what you're just now learning. "But Papyrus has been out since before you guys came to the Surface, which means..." 

"Holy shit, are you really that dense?"  

"Flowey!" 

All four of you jump in place, your heads turning simultaneously as one to see Toriel standing in the entrance to the room. Her face is a mixture of disapproval and concern, both of which prompt a thick lump of guilt in your throat to form, although Flowey is the only one at fault here. 

"S-sorry," Flowey grumbles under the heavy weight of her stare. There's palpable relief in the air when she sighs, but you don't feel any better about the  _guilt_  that takes over her own features.  

"Sirius, there's something I must admit." 

 

Dinner is finished and on the table as you speak, the kids eating away while you and Toriel remain in the living room with shared cups of tea. It's quiet in the room, the sounds of clinking silverware and quite chatter filtering in from the dining room, and Toriel has said nothing since she finished her initial explanation.  

"You did this for their safety." 

"Precisely," the mother nods, her cup in her hand, hardly touched since the two of you had begun talking. She's sitting in her armchair near the empty hearth, the coat moved in it's back to the table next to the drawings and hiding your picture underneath it's weight. "We made a decision while still on the mountain that the public would never know of Frisk's role as the savior of my people. With what my child did, with all they accomplished, they are still a child, and despite that, they are not in the best favor with your kind as of yet." 

AntiChrist. Traitor. You've heard every end of a spectrum of slurs and derogatory words aimed at the "angel" and "savior" of monster. From threatening to hunt down the child themselves, to wanting to kill the monsters that "tainted them" and "warped their mind" into freeing them, humankind had no short of colorful ways of showing exactly what they felt about a nine year old that had potentially saved an entire race from extinction.   

That Toriel and the others chose to hide it makes more than enough sense, but you have never once questioned out loud why Frisk would be with Toriel in the first place, or  _how_  for that matter. Monster sentiment has been anything but picturesque, the events you've been apart of more than proof enough to support this fact, but even so Toriel, a monster mother, has been supporting a human child for months now, perhaps even longer!  

"How, how did this happen," you ask, reluctant to even voice your question, but your curiosity is nearly overwhelming. "I-I'm sorry, Toriel. But, that they would allow Frisk to live with you..." It took years for same-sex couples of your own species to be allowed to adopt children, that Toriel was able to, did it have anything to with Frisk's ambassadorial status?  

"They....they tried to take them from me," Toriel says in a fragile voice, not meeting your eyes. Her gaze is lost in her tea cup, one that's much larger than your own, and you're already punishing yourself for asking. "They thought me unsuitable to care for my child. They wanted to take them away, to try to find their human parents, but I couldn't, I couldn't let it happen again." Not again, not after she lost her last two children. You've only seen the barest hint of what sort of damage losing them wrought on her Soul, you can't even imagine what it was like to lose them, and for it to happen nearly again?  "I've abdicated the throne," Toriel manages to begin to speaking again, but this time her tone is harder, measured. "But Asgore was able to use his influence and our wealth to do what we could." 

You mouth presses into a thin line at this.  

Greed. Of course, what else would move politicians so easily if not money?  

"But it was... difficult," her shoulders sink, betraying her exhaustion. "I still fear that someday that might still change their minds. If that were to ever happen, I..." There's a hint of movement at her elbow and you both look to see that Frisk has come to stand at their mother's side, the monster smiling gratefully at her child as they can only smile in bright warmth at her. "Oh, Frisk," she murmurs, placing her drink aside and scooping them up into a hug.  

The scene before you relaxes you, allowing you to sink into your seat and out of the straight backed position you had been in. When their exchange of love ends, they lead the way into the dining room to join the kids in eating. With Frisk, Toriel, MK, and even Flowey at a table with good food and shared laughter, the day just feels... easier as it wears on. But you can't forget about the photo on the coffee table, the coat that sits upon it, or the dissonance that rings in your Soul. With everything you're still learning, and what feels to still be so missing from your life, you can't help but be distracted. But you're glad you have this, Toriel's generosity, MK's infectious excitement, and Frisk's gentle smile, which only now seems to know more then you've ever noticed. 

 

It's no wonder that you can't seem to sleep later.  

Frisk and MK have been tucked into bed, but not until you gave so easily into reading them one of the little angel's story books. Toriel retired to her room shortly after with a goodnight to you, and now you find yourself on the living room couch, listening to the distant ticking of the clock. Toriel's passive musical magic has been put at rest for the night, and you can still recall the mother's delight when you had to ask about it, caving in and wondering if you were crazy for hearing a guitar constantly strumming in her home no matter what room you entered.  

"It  _is_  passive magic, the sort that's used to promote a sense of comfort and security to it's listeners," she explained, still chuckling. "I'm so used to the sound, I rarely notice it myself." 

Without it now, you're more lost than ever. There's an energy in your tired limbs you can get rid of, and you find yourself examining the living room over and over again mindlessly to keep your head off the very things that are making you incapable of resting.  

The attacks. Eolande. GD's cries of pain. BP's face when he held you in the ER. 

You want to rest, to recuperate enough to where just maybe you can take these things had with more strength, but your brain  _refuses_  to shut up. You haven't been this out of it since you were in college, worrying over your brother's health as he fell in love and simultaneously fell closer to danger.  

 _And_ _what had that led to._  

The squeak of a stair gives them away before Frisk appears at the bottom of the stairs, stepping carefully as to not cause too much noise, and their eyes finding you in question.  

"Hey, kid," you greet them lowly, not wanting to speak too loud yourself. You watch them as they finish walking down the stairs, entering the living room and stopping beside the coffee table. They pull out one of the used pieces of paper that still remain and pick up a crayon, drawing your notice until you're sitting on the edge of the couch, waiting to see that they have to say.  

It's the first time you've spoken to them without anyone else there to translate their Soul's voice to you, and in the early quiet of the night, the moment seems more private, contained.  

 _"Have you talked to G?"_  

"No," you reply, finding it easier to respond to this question after it's now been asked by Frederick in person, and Alphys, and Undyne over the phone. But it still leaves a bitter taste in your mouth and a feeling of cowardice in your chest. "He told me he watched over you in the Underground." 

Frisk smiles fondly at this, nodding, and scribbled away. Their handwriting is unlike their art, elaquent, well-practiced. Maybe it just came with the job they had, or maybe they're like you. Favoring writing words over drawing pictures.  

 _"_ _He_ _made a promise to mom."_  

 _"they were just a kid. had been read all the same books_ _paps_ _had. n’_ _i_ _couldn't go back on my word with the old lady."_  

 _Old lady, huh?_ That really should have given it way, but even then you hadn't suspected a thing.  

 _"He was really nice. Every time I went somewhere new, he was there_ _. I don’t know if I would have made it as far without him."_  

Made it? How dangerous was it for Frisk in the Underground, exactly? Had Toriel not stayed with them throughout? Why would G need to be with them and watch over them? 

 _"Mother couldn't stay with me after I left the Ruins. I knew she wouldn't, but I had to go."_  

Frisk had read your Soul, even without you having to voice your question out loud.  

"You can see Souls." 

Again, their smile is apologetic, and your head spins. How is this even possible? But how could a child fall to the Underground and break a magical barrier erected by powerful mages hundreds of years ago? How much of this story has been kept away from the general public?  

This time you hear Gerson's words in your head, reminding you of the discussion you had shortly after meeting him.  _"Older boss monsters such as myself have a cultivated natural ability in seeing Souls while they are still contained within their physical_ _vessels..._ _Other_ _monsters like myself would include the queen, of course, and although Dreemurr never had the natural talent for it, any heirs born of Toriel would probably be quite adept."_  

 _But Frisk wasn't born of Toriel. They're no monster, and magic in humans has been left largely_ _dormant_ _for centuries. So how can they see Souls? Was it contact with the Underground and monsters in_ _ge_ _neral_ _?_  

" _Exactly_ ," Frisk writes, reminding you of their mother just now, and you read on in rapt fascination as they explain.  _"Some humans are naturally more gifted in certain areas of magic then others, like monsters, and me coming into contact with the Underground combined with consuming monster food triggered_ _latent_ _abilities_ _."_  

Suddenly Frisk's writing has become much more mature then you would have thought previously possible at their age. Not only that but their expression is more serious, and yet still eager. They want you to understand, to learn.  _But why? Why you? Why now? You could hide the rest from me if you wanted, why tell me?_  

 _"Because I trust you, and the story isn't over,"_ they say on a different sheet of paper, having to switch out for a new piece more than once by now. " _We've come to the Surface but they aren’t safe just yet. I have to help them, but I need help myself."_  

They want you to help save the monsters, your friends, their people. People that are still hurting, still afraid, that have the night sky in their eyes and the sun on their skin but that can't enjoy them both to the fullest extent. Not without fearing for their lives, without knowing that every day is their last.  

And there is still someone that has never seen them. Papyrus. He still needs help, but if he wakes up someday, do you really want him to wake to a world like this one? 

"Frisk.... I don't want to lose anyone."  _Not again._ Not like your mother, who had died to sickness in her bed, or your father, who lost himself to his grief. Or Aludra, who slipped through your fingers faster then you could think to catch him. 

Frisk sighs silently, and nods, once. Their relieved, and turn back to their paper, you watching them with eyes wide and fists strained. 

This child saved so many people. They saved G, and Papyrus, their mother and the king, all of them. Their grip is small on their crayon, and as Frisk props themselves up on their knees they have to sit straight up to write correctly. They wear PJ's with little black, gray, and white rams on them, and their hair is already mussed from sleep. They're just a child, small, so new to the world.They're so friendly and full of love, and even now they're trying to help. Yet humans, your shared people, they would do such a thing as to say that they didn't deserve to live for what they did?  

 _"I'm sorry, I can't tell you everything, not yet."_  

At a loss, your hands loosen. You don’t understand why after all this that they would hold back in telling you what happened Underground exactly, but then they hold up another sheet of paper. 

 _"I can't tell you without G here."_  

"Why not?" 

" _There's more about it that even mother doesn't know,_ " they write. " _There's a lot to explain, but Flowey and G need to be here as well when I tell you._ _"_ What could they know that the king of all monsters knew little of and what Toriel is completely ignorant to? Does it have something to do with G watching them throughout their time in the Underground, but what part does Flowey play in this?  

 _"It's their story, as well. Please, wait a little bit longer."_  

 

You had to give into the kids request. What more could you do, but wait? And with how kind they and your friends have been to you, you can afford to be patient. Still, this does nothing to help you sleep that night. When Frisk hugs you farewell for the evening, you pull on your shoes and G's jacket, zipping it up before stepping outside. 

It's cold as expected but the air is still, thankfully no breeze you can notice to make it any colder, and you begin your walk away from Toriel's house. Considering all that's happened, going out at night alone is probably not the smartest thing you've decided to do. But being human makes you safer than some people, and also being in Town rather than the City improved your odds of not being accosted. You pull up your hood to protect both your ears and your identity nonetheless, letting your stomach lead you along. 

Everyone must be asleep, it's so silent. It's only you, your heartbeat in your ear, and your light steps for the majority of your walk, one lone car driving past you without stopping the only other hint of life outside. Given the hour most of the lights in the houses and other buildings are off, and when you find the gas station, it's like a beacon in the dark. 

When you step inside a bell sounds behind the counter to your right, a low " _bing_ _-bong_ ", and the glass door swings shut slowly behind you with a hiss from the closer mounted on it's frame. The person at the counter is watching a small television tucked between rows of cigarettes, but spares the time to share a hello with you.  

It's too bright inside, as gas stations tend to be at this hour, and you make a beeline for the snack section, walking past food like overpriced cups of ramen and cans of chili. The snack aisle is loaded with chocolate bars and other sweets, large bags of chips and expensive packs of jerky. You're considering buying a bag of chips bigger than your head in the hopes of inducing a food coma when the bell sounds again. You don't look up to see who it could be, reasoning that it must just be another lost stranger in the night, and you consider the ingredients on the back of the bag until a voice interrupts your reading.  

"Mei?" 

Fuku is standing at the end of the aisle, her green flickering figure wearing a knee length sweater, boots, and a light coat. Your hand holding the bag wilts in the air slightly, you unprepared to see the fire elemental here of all places. "Fuku?" 

A few minutes later and you're sitting across from Fuku in a hard booth next to the front window, a couple of cans of Love Tea on it's surface between the two of you. Like her father, Fuku gives off a faint aura of warmth, causing the glass near her to fog up gently when it clashes with the cold of the outside. You wonder briefly if she needs to wear a coat at all, but it looks cute on her, with it's complementary red fabric and brown buttons.  

You compliment it haltingly, hoping to fill the quiet, and her cheeks blossom a dark green. "Thank you, I bought it just this morning with Dythalla, my best friend. She lives nearby, with her aunt," she says, adjusting the collar slightly, and then her hand lowers. "We were shopping when we heard about, about-." Here she stops, looking down at the table, and you can tell that her hands are clasped beneath it. Her flames flicker irritably, like a candle threatening to go out in a wind, and the urge to reach forward and comfort her comes upon you in a flash. She looks up, unaware of your discomfort, and is frowning, the upset in her words confirming what you're afraid of. "I was so afraid of what I had heard," she bursts out, leaning across the table. "The night at father's bar was so terrifying, and to think this would happen again so soon after, after... And Eolande, poor Eolande..." Her eyes fall to the table again as she leans back in her chair, and you can hear the tears she isn't shedding. 

"Did you know them?" 

"Yes, we went to school together," she admits, running a hand over the side of her face like a human might do when tucking back a lock of hair. "They were always so quiet, but they would help decorate the gryft tree in Snowdin every year. I can't imagine what their Mate must be going through..." 

A small gasp escapes from you, and your Soul squeezes uncomfortably in your chest. Their Soul Mate, that had never occurred to you, but then, you never knew that they had one. 

"I know very little, myself," Fuku answers you question when you ask it. "But after we came to the Surface, I spoke to Eolande a few times while frequenting a record store on campus," she says, her smile soft and sad. "There was this poster of an actress inside that had a part in a production of the Roxy Terror Picture Show. They only visited our campus once as a part of a tour, but that's all it took." Fuku looked to the side to peer out the window, and back again when the fog blocked her vision. "Eolande was too scared to meet them in person, and by the time they left it was too late. But Eolande always said that the next time, they would give it a real chance. Their Mate was slated to perform next semester in a showing of The Queen and I...but," she shakes her head.   

The air between the two of you is tense, neither of you happy given the situation of the world. _If only things were easier_ , you can't help but think pointlessly, half watching Fuku across from you. If only the monsters could have come to the Surface and had been welcomed with open arms. How different would it be if the war had never happened to begin with? What sort of people would you be, would you ever encounter one another to begin with? What if, what if... 

Neither Fuku or you leave each immediately, the elemental hovering near the exit of the store and examining the mood rings by the cash register as you pay for some dark chocolate sweets. Behind the worker as they ring up your bill the television keeps playing, and you hear the reporter speaking through the silence. 

 _"_ _Just a few hours ago the local_ _prescient_ _in downtown_ _Ebott_ _City received a welcome gift in the form of two tied and bound human individuals,"_ they're saying, and an image of two mug shots of two humans are brought on the screen. They look more then a little worse for wear, with purpled faces, split lips, and ragged hair, but what really stands out is the wide rims of their eyes. They look  _terrified. "The two men were identified as being key conspirators for several attacks on monster civilians within the city, reportedly seen within the area of a recently destroyed apartment complex that was known for it's good will towards non-human civilians seeking shelter."_  

"One-fiddy," the cashier asks, and you hand over the amount, a little distracted with what's being shown to properly count out your change the first time around.  

"Mei, they mean your home," Fuku says, sidling up next to you pocket the chocolate but otherwise remain standing where you are. The cashier turns around, curious at the attention you have on the set behind them. 

 _"When asked for the identity of the person or persons that_ _apprehended_ _them, one of the suspects refused to speak, while the other stated something rather_ _peculiar_ _, saying that "the Reaper_ _" had come to find them."_  

""The Reaper?"" Fuku repeats back, her eyes widening, but your thoughts are already spinning in your head, resulting in only one conclusion. 

" _G_." Fuku glances at you, questioning, and the cashier mirrors her expression. 

"You knows about this guy?" 

You turn to them only briefly, nodding in away that's almost curt, "Thank you. Have a good night," and turn to leave. 

Fuku follows you out, waving to the cashier, but you don't go very far. Standing in front of the window, you're barely aware of the cold, your breath catching in the wind, and snow flakes melt in the air, their water disengaging before they can make contact with Fuku's fire.  

"Mei, they meant G, didn't they?" 

Your sigh comes more broken then you excepted it to, but you nod, "I-it had to be." The Reaper, with their skeletal body and dark eyes. Never before has the depiction of Death frightened you, but when you think of this turn of events, your clinched hands begin to shake. 

"Mei," Fuku whispers, seeing them. "You're scared for him, aren't you?" 

"W-what he's doing, Fuku, I know what he's doing," you say to her, looking to her abruptly, your eyes wide. "He's trying to help them, Fuku, but if he's not careful-." What if he's not careful? G is strong, you've seen his power first hand for yourself. What else could be someone that stopped bullets midair and pulled up asphalt like paper be but strong? But you can't help yourself. If someone were to see him and report his actions to the police, he could lose his home, his wealth, his materials to help Papyrus. If someone found some way of hurting him, what could you possibly do about it? 

 _And before I get to speak to him again, to apologize, to explain._ _Papyrus' can't lose his brother just as they finally reach the Surface!_  

"Mei!" 

You feel her warmth through your coat when she places her hand on your shoulder, and you realize that you're crouching down, your hand to your chest, your breath coming quick.  

 _If anyone touches G, I'll, I'll-._ You see it again, that moment in front of the bar when you sprung up, took up a fist sized chunk of rock, and pushed it to collide with that person as they bore down on G from behind. You see G as his eye flashes bright, his mouth thin, and his eyes locked on the crowd of humans that stood before you on that night, his rage burning within your chest.  

You close your eyes tightly, pushing it back beneath your skin.   _"I don't want them to hurt G,_ _Fuku_ _._ _"_  

"Go to him, Mei," Fuku says, but you're shaking your head again, uncertain.  

"I-it's stupid, I know but, I'm scared that he won't want me," you say, hating the words as you hear them out loud. But what good would you do by his side? You lost your family, you couldn't protect your bother, who cared for you and loved you for so long. How could it be any different? "I don't know what it's like, to lose a Soul Mate, Fuku. I just found him." 

"My father told me." 

The moment stills. There's the snow and the night, your breathing gone quiet and Fuku's voice near your head.  

"He told me, what it's like," she says uncertainly with remorse. "He lost my mother and he couldn't put it in a way that I can understand completely just yet, but," she pauses before she continues, and you turn your head, meeting her sun spot eyes in the light of the gas station. "He said it's like the pain We felt when We first Split, and we fell to the Earth." When we Split, when the gods or some other mighty force took Us in their hands and tore us asunder, and you tremble instinctively, your Soul withdrawing into itself as if to hide from the very idea. 

"Go to him, Mei. For your own sake, for his, and for Eolande's," she urges you, smiling in a way that strikes you as worried, and you think it must because she's afraid what would happen otherwise. "Curb his recklessness, and make sure he doesn't hurt himself again." 

 _Go to him, go to him._ You never thought previously that you would encounter a stranger so concerned for your well-being, not until you met Toriel, and maybe it's your Soul thinking for itself, but you find that you trust Fuku just as quickly. Standing up with her hand still on your coat, you must ask, "I-I don't know if I can find him." There's his home, but who's to say that he won't pop away again? Besides, the idea of possibly being rejected and arguing with G, however possible it may be, doesn't feel fair to the younger brother to do it within a few steps of his room. If you encounter G and talk to him, you want to do it alone. 

"Your Soul will help you if you need it, think of it as playing hot and cold," her smile lightens at this, her eyes flitting away and back again, and you wonder what saying this reminds her of. "But Mei," she begins, and you startle when her arms wrap around you, her embrace so unexpected and your own emotions so turbulent that you stand there in shock. "Please, be careful. Whatever happens. We can't lose you." 

"Fuku," you mutter, wondering what she means. "Can you tell me someday about Mei?" 

She falters, placing a hand over her mouth. 

"You keep calling me their name, but I've never met them," you say, smiling as best as you can manage.  

"I," she drops her hand, avoiding your gaze. "I will try. I would like that, actually," she nods herself, glowing a tick brighter, and with it you feel a spark of confidence, knowing you have at least this to look forward to.  

You part with Fuku after a goodbye, your hand going for your phone in your pocket, and your Soul thrumming in your chest.  _Mei. I wonder what reminds_ _Fuku_ _of this person so much?_  

 

G's line rings, rings, and rings. Why isn't he picking up? You pause beside the street, shooting him a quick text, and rush off again. 

Steadily since your departure from Fuku, your impatience towards meeting your Mate has picked up without faltering, making your steps faster, and your heart beat harder in your chest. You're leaving Ebotton behind when the hum of your Soul turns into a tug, and you halt on the sidewalk. Your eyebrows raise and then furrow on your forehead, you eyes peering over the wrought iron fence of the Ebotton Residential park. _So soon?_  

Even with this thought you can feel the prick of sweat on your skin, the cold air making you shiver more than normal, and your heart rate is erratic at best. Whether it's from the strain of running through Toriel's neighborhood and beyond to where you are now or your erratic nerves or a combination of both, you don't know. You stand there for more than a few beats, collecting yourself, and agitated that your breathing is as painful as it is.  

You want to hover there longer and try to collect yourself, but it's not happening. Your stomach feels queasy, your mouth runs dry, and your pulse is jumping. You haven't been this afraid since you were due to give a private oral exam for your foreign language class in college. Afraid? Yeah, you're afraid of G. Of what he might say, of what you might do or feel if he just jumps away again.  

 _But he must know I'm here_ , you think rationally, stubbornly trying to consider this a good thing. If he hasn't left yet, maybe he wants to talk as well. With this in mind, you walk over until you find the archway that serves as the entrance to the park, and continue on inside.  

The place is as deserted as you would expect it to be, the ground heavy with snow save for near the playground and along the sidewalks, which have a much lighter coating. There are various benches and picnic style seating scattered about, mainly near the pond nearby and the play area, their metal surfaces softened with a dark plastic that rounds at every corner. The trees are bare, but neatly dot the sides of the walkway park lights separating each tree, and others are scattered about the typically grassy expanse of land. The fenced in dog park is just as empty as the rest, and there's no one hanging out by the water, but your eyes catch onto a glimmer of light in the play area.  

There's a figure there standing at the center of the graveled area that you know right away to be him, his right side turned towards you, and the end of his cigarette brightens as he sucks in a hiss of air. You can see the cloud of smoke that escapes his teeth as you approach slowly, until thick white gives way to lightly dusted pebbles, and you stop a few feet away. 

"G?" 

"hey, siri," he says, but not as lilting and almost playful as he normally would. His voice sounds gravelly, on edge, and you want to tense up, but you're afraid that he'll notice your apprehension. "what are you doing out here?" He remains as he is, not turning when he asks this, but you press on. 

"L-looking for you," you say, swallowing down the jitteriness in your muscles. It's the first time you've spoken to him in days, and it's as if all the comfort you've grown to have with him has scattered to the wind. But how could he not, considering... You ignore that thought, not wanting to linger on any bitterness you might feel, but knowing that you can't let it go, not without answers. "I've been wanting to s-speak to you," you try, your eyes darting away from him, your confidence fraying already. "About that night, and what you saw, in the bathroom." 

G says nothing , but you choose not to take this as a bad sign, because he hasn't fled yet. "I want to say I'm sorry-." 

"for what?" 

"For-," you stutter, not knowing what he's getting at with this. He certainly couldn't have forgotten, and what else could you possibly be talking about? "For keeping them from you, G. I was, I was scared, of what you would think," you voice breaks, you feel light as air, certain that you might float away with the next hard breeze. "B-but I, I had no right-." 

"what are you getting at, siri?" 

You feel something within you break, like a string pulled taut that finally snaps, and your breath escapes you as you forget to breathe properly. You Soul pulsates with your heart, once, twice.  _It's_ _happen_ _ing_ _._  "I should, shouldn't have hi-hidden something so important from you-," you say to your feet, insistent, trying to say what you mean, but you hear something sharp, a laugh devoid of mirth that's small but still very much there.  

"you mean those words on your arm," he asks, finally bringing up the subject at hand, and you say nothing, waiting. He crumbles the cinerite he's barely touched between the bones that held it, and stuffs it in his jacket pocket, not removing his hand after. "are you really going to let a couple of markings on your skin tell you who's right for you?" 

You wince at this visibly no matter how hard you try to stifle it, the sting that comes from his words adding to the hurt that's already begun to build up, smothering you from the inside out. "Jeh-G, you, you've only ever been a good person to me. I thought, I thought we could be-. That we were-. I, I know that some people think that, that it has to be ro-romantic, but we don't," you cut yourself off, letting out the air you've been holding, but try to continue even though he says nothing about this. "I just want to be-"  _around you, near you, in your arms  "-_ with you, G. We can stay friends, or-."  

 _"If everything you told me is as it happened,_ _t_ _hen G is_ _fri_ _ghte_ _ned_ _,"_  Frederick's advice comes to you again, and you want to believe that it's true. Because if it is, then maybe, just maybe, you can get through to G as they did for you. 

"stop." 

You stop, your jaw clicking closed. You don't know if what's within you is all yours or his as well, the storm of regret and want, sadness and need never stopping. For the first time since coming upon him G turns in place, but his back is to you, and even more still than ever you can't begin to know what he's thinking. 

"don't look for hope where there isn't any, sirius jones." 

Silence lingers, stretches on, and there it is, the eye in the heart of it. The blackness you felt comes back to you, slowing your breathing, tempering your heart. Your mouth tightens and at last, the anger gives in. 

"Fine." G doesn't respond, but you don't let it break you further, instead you find assurance in it, assurance that it doesn't matter. If he's not going to do anything, to give you and whatever you have a chance, or to even explain himself, then... "I won't." 

This time it's not G that leaves, it's you. Letting those last words be your goodbye, you walk away without stopping.  

 

For the second time since meeting your Soul Mate you are entirely without him. But whereas last time you wallowed and wondered, this one you wouldn't let it, not during the light of day at least. Yet you were not without distraction. 

With your newfound home at Toriel's, however temporary it may be, you delved into spending more time with Frisk and the mother. Toriel is a teacher at the local elementary school, working on gaining the experience she needs while dreaming of having her very own school that she may run someday, one where monster and human children may learn together.  

Whenever she has PTA meetings or is otherwise busy, the latter being rare as she devoted as much of herself as she could manage to her child, you looked after Frisk. After that night wherein you met G you've become convinced that Frisk is far more mature then they let on to be, but it's possible that there was simply always something lost in translation when Flowey speaks for them.  

When you are with Frisk you learn more about their adventure in the Underground, but not all of it, not the hard details. You learn about how they met Undyne, Alphys, and Metatton, the story elaborated upon when the girls would visit themselves. 

When Undyne and the doctor found out that you knew about Frisk they were embarrassed, but you forgave Alphys' hasty stuttering and Undyne's awkward laughter right away. You understood with them as you did with Toriel, after all. They only wanted to protect the child that they owed their lives to, and it wasn't as if they hid who they were very thoroughly to begin with.  

Like with Gerson, you learned more about monster culture through Toriel, the monarch jumping at the chance to indulge in her favorite past time and one day life long career.  

One afternoon after work you've joined her in her study, sitting at a chair near her desk, which is pressed against the left wall while shelves of books line the remainder, a smaller shelf situated under a window with two doors that could swing open much like your old one.  

"Passive magic is a wondrous thing then Active," she's saying, sipping tea in her large, comfortable looking desk chair with her body turned towards yourself. "Whereas Active may often be more forceful, and short in duration, Passive is subtle, but can last for some time." 

"Like Gerson's protection spell over the shop," you think out loud. 

"Exactly," she nods, delighted by your answer, and eagerly goes on. "Like Active, there are far more ancient forms of Passive magic that date back to even before things like bartering were ever implemented, one of the oldest and most powerful being that of Naming." 

You lower the sip you were about to give to your cup, a thought coming to you. "I've heard of this, growing up," you begin, and she shifts forward in her chair, listening. "Whenever I read stories about the fey, I always heard that in some instances you should never give a fairy your name, or that one would never give there's, because with it anyone could hold great power over them." 

"And that would be completely true," she says, and your drink is forgotten completely. "It is said that since the dawn of life, within each and every being there lies a True Name. This Name is one that remains with us throughout each and every life we live, each time our Soul passes on and imbues itself within or creates a new Shell, that the Name remains the same." 

"T-then how do we know," you can't help but ask. "How would we ever learn it?" 

She hums, her smile wavering in a show of disappointment. "Sadly, that is a mystery in of itself. It was also once said, when my people were still of the Surface, that many of us lost our True Names when we were still Whole. Like our Souls, they two split in two. With that logic, those who never Split, and who still remain Whole, contain within them their complete True Names, but they like any other may find it a very difficult time at discovering what it is, exactly," she drinks her tea, reminding you of your own, but it's cold when you finish it off. "But given another's power over oneself should they ever learn their Whole True Name, or the Fraction that remains within them, it is better that we do not know them, then." 

That doesn't keep you from being wildly curious as to what yours  _could_  be, Fraction or no. You shake away any chance your brain has at letting it question G's. 

Failing to notice what's on your mind, thankfully, Toriel goes on. "Although we may not know our True Name, the practice of Names remaining a significant part of anyone's life remains. No matter what form they take, they have a power of their own. Family names for familial attachment and, in the case of strangers, for additionally formality during conversation. Nicknames are used to show a close personal bond, such as with friends, but can also display a deep rift of cruelty. Like when a bully calls you a particular name out of spite, using a nickname rather than your own to show that they care not for regarding your in a respectful manner that you may deserve. Names can come with title, or deeds, and they can also be granted or change, depending on personal circumstance." 

There it is again, a reminder, but this time your interests are too great, the name G versus the name Sans provoking an immediate connection to the conversation and to a deep sated curiosity you've been meaning to have explained for ages now. "W-what do you mean by "personal circumstance"." 

Toriel appears to consider it for a moment, but soon replies. "Say as if someone were to face a life changing experience. It may be that afterwards that they no longer feel as they once were. Whether they think they are deserving of the name, for good or ill, they may decide to replace it with another," she answers, and finishes off her own cup. "Either way, in the case of my kind it is only right that we then see them as such, otherwise we risk falling into the same shoes as the bully with no respect for their wishes." 

So why then did G introduce himself as Sans that first time you met? Was it a mistake of his own, a somehow simple case of mistaken identity on his on behalf?  _Simple, none of this sounds simple_ , you think, chiding yourself and chewing on your lip. Trying to think of it as such felt to be a wrong thing to do on your part. 

After this discussion on the nature of names with Toriel it was less often during the light hours that you were reminded of G, but this didn't stop your thoughts from wandering at night when the others were in bed. Especially so when concerning the case of dreaming.   

You dreamed and dreamed, your mind giving one show of memory or present experience after another, and with them you saw through the eyes of the Soul Mate you left behind in the park. 

They were as they have been of Papyrus resting in his current bed, and glimpses of the inside of a house you've never seen in person, but knew to be G's old residence by his familiarity of every nook and corner. Sometimes there were dreams of you in a snowy place that could have been very well confused with the Surface, if it were not for the seemingly endlessly tall black trees that were stunted only by the rocky roof far above his head. You saw faces, some you even knew at this point in time, like Stuart the Bear throwing back a pint in a bar like atmosphere, Grillby's old location, or Hollie with her baby brother...on a leash? Well, that was odd. 

But other times the world seemed so much bigger, each and every house and tree so much grander. When he stepped into the snow it brushed the knees of his legs, and when went from point a to point b it was such fervor you had to wonder if it was not an old memory of yours that you were dreaming of instead. 

And always you would awake, your Soul aching dully in your chest. Toriel would arrive to say good morning, bright eyed and busy tailed, for a new school day, while Frisk lagged behind looking for all the world the most annoyed then you have ever saw them.  

You threw yourself into your work, and your time with your friends, never wanting to let yourself hover about for too long. 

When you received the text from Hollie, it was early in the morning, and you were just sitting up out of your makeshift bed. You could hear Toriel stirring upstairs, her alarm having been turned off minutes ago, and there was a blinking green light on your phone, sitting on the coffee table as it was. 

Thinking it could be Undyne, early riser as she is as well what with her exercise routine, you open your phone to view the message. Turns out, it was from the night before. 

???-???? (12:30 pm) 

 _Is this Sirius Jones' number?_  

xxx-xxxx (5:45 am) 

 _You have the right number. May I ask who this is?_  

It took her a spell to reply, Frisk out the door and on their way to their bus stop, and Toriel already off to work. The mother had offered to give her child a lift, but Frisk liked riding with what new friends they had. Meanwhile Flowey was still upstairs, snoozing away.  

???-???? (8:30 pm) 

This is Hollie! I asked for your number from Fuku. I hope you don't mind :3 

Your shoes are on and you're leaving, locking the door behind you with a spare key, when you reply.  

xxx-xxxx (8:40 am) 

 _No! I don't mind at all! I'm sorry I missed_ _your_ _text, was there something you wanted to talk about?_  

Hollie (8:43 pm) 

 _Do you mind if I call you, if you aren't busy? It's about Papyrus._  

Alarm bells sound automatically in your head, and you try to think of some reason this might be. You haven't...felt anything significant from G's side. If anything it's like he's been in the same state you've been, with no major feelings towards one thing or another, but you have no way of testing this, after all... 

You're at your bus stop and the vehicle is arriving when you go ahead and call her directly yourself.  

After a single ring, she picks up, " _Ms. Jones_?" 

"Hollie, is there something wrong with Papyrus," you ask, unable to help yourself, and ignore the look that one of the other passengers give you, finding a seat quickly at the back of the bus. 

" _Oh, no! He's alright, hasn't been a_ _problem at all, the darling,"_ she says, and you release a sigh.  _"I'd say, he's been about the same as he has been. Which is why I called,"_ she says, provoking some confusion from your end.  _"See, I know that you and G_ _aren't talking right now."_  

"No, we aren’t..." 

 _"But, and I'm not saying G isn't as attentive as ever with his brother, but I just wanted to ask if you would mind stopping by to say hello!"_  

You heart skips a beat in your chest. Stop by to visit Papyrus? But this isn't possible, not since you and G are not longer...whatever you were. You don't want to think of what G would say if he caught you with Papyrus again... 

Your eyes sting at the thought, the pain coming unbidden. What would he think? You adored his brother, how could you not? And that G might be made furious by you ever going near him again... 

"I...I can't Hollie. G would never allow it." 

 _"Don't think of such a thing! Even if things between you and G aren't as they were, he knows how wonderful you were with his brother, and besides, this isn't just about G's feelings,"_ she tries, but you can't help the skepticism you feel. Hearing your silence, when she speaks again, it’s with some resignation. " _Would you say goodbye then? Perhaps read one last story to him? I know Papyrus would enjoy it."_  

You take the time to consider it, your eyes unfocused as the world passes by. Reason suggested that this is would be a good chance for you to give G's jacket back. One of the first things you had done after the fire was go shopping with Undyne and Alphys, buying a new coat while in the midst of buying new clothing so that you might give back Frederick's and not have to rely on using G's. If you went to G's, you could leave the coat he lended you, read one last story, and give a goodbye to the brother of your dreams. 

"Okay, I'll come." 

 

You and Hollie decide on that very day for you to visit. Without asking her, she informs you that G is away working at his lab, and you don't know how to feel about knowing you won't see him, so you try to not think on it. After work, you pick up the coat and let Toriel know where you're going. 

Toriel asks nothing of the visit, giving you a warm goodbye with a hug that lasts, and you finally leave.  

You've never simply ridden to the campus, and the bus takes you through the entire city it seems before you're deposited there. Too soon you make it to G's door, and with the coat over one arm, you knock right away.  

"In, story, goodbye, out. In, out," you mutter under your breath, stopping at once when the door swings open, and reveals Hollie's smiling countenance.  

"Hiiiii," she nearly sings, going in for a hug you return without hesitating. You always did like Hollie, her bubbly, and utterly friendly attitude always refreshing to experience after a long day. It's odd to be welcomed in with G by your side, but Hollie says nothing of it. "I haven't seen you in so long! How have you beeeeeen!" 

"I've been o-okay," you say, stumbling on your near lie. "What have you been up to?"  

"Oh, you know," she starts, walking into the main room with you following after. "My little bun has been acting spoiled as always, and I always see a certain you-know-who here at odd hours of the day," she says this in a conspiratorial whisper, her playfulness making it easier to hear. "But it's Papyrus I've been concerned about. Ms. Undyne and the others visit often, but I think he missed a certain someone," she says with a wink, and you blush, guilty, even if you couldn’t help it exactly but be away. "But we can make up for that!" With this she leads you to the back room, her brother waving at you with a binky in his mouth from the floor of the living room as you go, blocks of all sizes and colors scattered about him.  

"Now, I must warn you beforehand," Hollie says with her hand on Papyrus' oddly closed door. It was rarely shut when you visited previously. "I was doing a special sort of check up when you arrived, and what you will see may startle you a bit." 

"Startle?" What was she doing exactly, cutting his skull open? The thought automatically sends your eyes to the door, fear taking hold of you in an instant. 

"Papyrus is doing just fine. What I've been doing is a normal procedure as a means of gauging the current state his Soul," she says, and opens the door, totally missing the slack jawed expression that takes over your face.  

Papyrus' room is alight with color, and not just any color, but a  _vibrant,_ _burning_ orange.  It covers every inch of the space, radiating out from a singular location. 

Papyrus is still laid out upon his bed, but above him is something you've never once seen in person, floating several centimeters above his chest.  

You know it right away to be his Soul, the culmination of his very being. It's crystalline in appearance, and reminds you much like one of the ore samples that Gerson has brought to the shop. For the heart shape that you have come to expect from Souls is there...but so is something else, thick, black shards that stick out from his Soul like pins in a cushion.  

Unlike the parts of his Soul that glow orange, these are filled with a cloudy blackness, rolling beneath the surface of their own crystal-like containers.  

You approach Papyrus' bed in near reverence, your attention solely on what floats unmoving above him, and Hollie stands beside you, a knowing smile on her face. 

"He's beautiful, isn't he?" 

You look to her and back again, and then nod. He is beautiful, like the colors of the sky at dusk, or orange tree leaves in the early days of fall. The warmth and protection that Papyrus naturally exudes is amplified greatly, and you feel as though you could sit next to him and stare at it for hours if you no one were there to stop you. 

"What...what are they," you ask uncertainly, meaning the black shards. It could be that they are a natural part of him—no, you know this to be wrong right away. Your own Soul knows it to not be true. It doesn't look right, those shards erupting from his own like that, and without having to hear anyone say as much, you have a feeling that those are exactly why he is in the state he is in now.  

"We don't know," Hollie answers, as calm and quiet as you've never heard her. "G thinks it may be piece of the former Royal Scientist's magic. Perhaps even his own Soul." 

"How...how is that possible? I thought monster Souls disappear as soon as a monster dies." 

"That's what we thought we knew," she says, shrugging, "but he was always said to be a strange, powerful, and mysterious man. Even G doesn’t know everything about him." Hollie says, not stopping you when you go to stand fully beside Papyrus. "Oh! I forgot," she exclaims behind you, but you don't look back. "I need to go get something. I'll be right back!" You have no time to reply as she steps out so quickly. Unperturbed by her hasty departure, and honestly not very aware of it, you try to examine his Soul as best as you can. 

Toriel had mentioned that Souls of monsters were only normally revealed during more intimate moments or encounters, but given the severity of the situation, you guess that they have little choice but to see to Papyrus' directly.  As close as you are, you can see where Papyrus' Soul is met with the shards, which almost appear to be on the surface alone, but perhaps not embedded directly within his being. 

You have this desire, this overwhelming desire to reach forward and pluck them away, like leaves on a picture frame, or the petals on a flower. You Soul is vibrating within you, almost urging you on. It would be so easy, and the space between your finger and the shards is near magnetic, as if they themselves are pulling you towards them.  

With orange light dancing across your hand, you're barely aware of what you're doing, until, at last, the very tip of your forefinger brushes and makes contact with the very tip of one of those black shards.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that was doozy. I may need to reread this chapter later, but I'm afraid that if I don't post it now, I may not get the chance any time soon! This week was eventful for me. I unexpectedly met up with an old friend, my birthday came and went, and there have been more visitors lately...  
> The next chapter will be an odd one, as most of it's content is new, and well....you'll see! I hope you enjoy it, and that you enjoyed this one as well! I'll see you all later!


	17. Of the Whole and Scattered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by the song, "Sanctuary" from the Fable III soundtrack.

It is white. No, it is not white, your mind argues back, and forth. Your eyes are open, this you know. Are they? Are they really? When did they close? You try to blink, and think you succeed.  

It appears to be white above you—wait. Above? You aren't laying down, are you? You think perhaps the world tilts in the new perspective, and you are standing on your feet. But nothings really changed—no, you're standing, and your eyes are open. This is what you want to think. Anything else threatens to make you shiver, cause you to feel vulnerable in this vast, empty-. 

Empty? It's not empty. Your vision focuses, blurs, refocuses. At least, it feels like it is, you know that feeling, of your pupils dilating. All this...white, is you want to call it, yet it's difficult to tell if your vision is really blurring at all, and a headache is threatening to form in the back of your skull. 

Headache? Is that what that is? It hurts, but you've never had a headache, never in your life. But it's the only answer you can come up with.  

You're standing, your eyes are open, you're surrounded by...white. Your mind still grumbles about this. It's much like staring at a pockmarked ceiling, your brain is trying to find some sort of pattern in all this chaos—but all you can see is white, so this makes no sense. 

Something shifts in the...air. No, there's no way you aren't surrounded by air right now, the very idea otherwise causes your heart rate to pick up beneath your skin-. 

The white breaks, your vision interrupted by something that moves around your head, centers over your eyes—hands. Hands without palms, round, perfectly shaped circles in the center of each white, white hand. They are white, a different sort then this place around you, and your brain accepts this happily... but if your brain had a face of it's own, you think there would be sweat on it's brow.  

You're looking through those holes, and it's like looking through glass. Something is there, within that space, something invisible, but you think if you were to reach inside, the air would feel thick, like pressing your fingers into pudding.  

“Breathe.” 

You breathe in, and out. Slowly. Have you been holding it in this entire time? You have, you know this before the question finishes forming itself in your head. 

Questions, questions, like buzzing in your ears. Unnecessary buzzing, constant, like a million, billion, trillion uncountable voices surrounding your head. Are they all coming from you-no, they aren't. They are coming from the white, the void. 

No, that isn't right. The void, that's the biggest lie there is. Because this place isn't empty, it's filled to the very brim with everything, an everything your eyes can't hope to focus all on at once.

You close your eyes. Breathe in, and out. The hands move, removing themselves from your eyes, and placing themselves on each side of your head, one over each ear. 

The questions, the noise, it dims. Suddenly it's like a roaring ocean has pulled back it's waves, and you've raised sea shells up to each of your ears to listen to it through. You still hear everything, but it's not nearly as bad as it was.  

How can he stand it? 

The weight on your head is lifted and you turn around in a rush, eyes blown wide. 

Your brain latches onto the image before you, like a ship wrecked man finding land, and the strain on your eyes finally relaxes. But the pressure doesn't entirely let up, something is still off about this person, and the fact that you know him at all is baffling all on it's own. 

He's tall, not as tall as the king, but taller than yourself, then G, and even Undyne. He looks much like a human would with his shoulders cloaked in a large, thin, black robe with long sleeves, and if he wore a mask, that white, white face of his wouldn't be able to let anyone know otherwise.  

He has an angular jaw, but a simple mouth, like a slash in a piece of fabric, with no lips to speak of, and neither does he have a nose. His eyes are expressive, despite the fact that they are just as lacking in detail: one is round, oval-shaped, while the other resembles a down turned, crescent moon. And then there are the cracks, one starting from his crescent shapes eye and spreading upwards. The other from his oval-shaped eye, and cutting down. If one side of his face were covered, the other would display an expression of contentment, and the other, utmost joy. 

The way he holds himself reminds you of the queen, regal, yet unimposing. But whereas the queen extrudes comfort, he gives off an air of...distraction. As if he would never think to intimidate anyone with his figure, the cogs of his mind too busy on other more necessary things to even considering to bother. You think that if you were to ever see him angry, he would be all the more intimidating for it. 

“Do you know who I am.” 

There's no question mark at the end of his inquiry, as if he knows you already know, and you do. 

The answer tumbles from your mouth, words conjured on your tongue faster than they come to mind, as if you always knew them to be true but never took the time to think them, and with this one statement, they spring forth from within you: “You are the former royal scientist to King Asgore Dreemurr and Queen Toriel Dreemurr, Wing Dings Gaster, under the Kingdom of Stars. You are-” Your mind finally catches up, and snags on to that last bit of information before it can pass your lips: Papyrus and G's father.  

Gaster seems momentarily intrigued by this, and reading his face despite any obvious shift in his visage becomes another facet of this conversation you're unsure on how you're coming to understand.  Placing the tips of his long fingers together, he looks out to the space around you, and the slide of his sleeves gives away the fact that they aren't currently attached to his wrists. “Ah, I see that in the undisguised presence of myself, I could not keep everything from entering your mind.” 

“I'm sorry, but w-what do you mean," you ask, wanting to know what he's speaking and what's going on exactly, but also momentarily intrigued by his free floating hands, no, not free. They move as if they are very much connected somehow, as if there is an invisible connecting bridge or tether, but you wonder if they could move otherwise. "How, how do I know who you are?”  _And what is this_ _Ki_ _ngdom_ _of Stars? It's never been mentioned._  

“There is no here or there for myself, I am everywhere. Infinitesimal, unchanging, and yet constantly shifting with the tides of all that is," he begins by saying, clasping his hands behind his back, much like an old professor during a lecture. "You are speaking to me from a point in time and space, one I am apart of and yet not. As I am one with all, I know all, and by coming into contact with my Soul, you have found a direct link to speaking with myself. To be linked to me is to also know as I do, and as I am a part of All, I know All, but your current state of being will not allow such an extreme to keep you sane," he says, tapping the side of his head with the index finger of one hand, the obvious lines of separation between each of it's joint reminding you of the hands of a marionette. "For your sake, and my own, I am using a means of stifling that connection.” 

You inhale sharply at this, unable to meet his eyes for a moment after being told that you've missed a bullet you never knew had been fired.  

Infinitesimal knowledge or not you know that such an immeasurable amount of awareness would drive you insane, like a computer with too much strain to it's motherboard. To know everything is something your human mind could never hope to contain within itself without burning itself alive, and it would leave nothing left in the any universe for you to ever hope to know. If your brain did not short circuit from the knowledge, your Soul would destroy itself with the misery that would follow from not having any wonder to expect to experience in life, and with all the horrors you would know of life, as well as the good. You're only human, you could never begin to hope to take the strain.  

“An intelligent human, no less, and what are humans if not creatures of curiosity and ambition. With them come innovation, a strive for the unexpected, for change, and to have neither would render your core sense of self meaningless," he says this with such a calm demeanor even while his  words lend a much harder edge to them, a manner of speaking that you can only hope to dream of pulling off. "That boundless enthusiasm for the unknown is something I admire in humankind; to have you come to an end because that is ripped away from you...I would much rather avoid that.” 

“T-thank you," you say with absolute sincerity, even if you current state of mind won't allow you to put it any more eloquently than that. "But, but why am I here? Y-you mentioned your Soul? That's what those shards were, they were--they were parts of your Soul embedded within Papyrus.” 

“Correct, again. It pains me that my son should be suffering due to my own mistakes. Although being apart of the All tells me that I had no control over his actions...as a naturally mortal creature in body...it pains me, nevertheless.” 

Your eyes flit over the white expanse, searching for some sign of the younger skeleton brother that does not appear. “If I am connected to you now, does, does that mean Papyrus can hear us?”  

Despite the fact that he obviously must already know of your questions before you speak them, Gaster is nothing if not polite and patient for them. “No. I admit until you came in contact with my Soul, I was speaking to my son, to the best of my ability.” 

“That's, that's wonderful news!" Your exclamation comes with the first real smile you've honestly felt since coming here, your lack of smiling at all over the recent days exercising muscles you've been neglecting to the point that your more sensitive to the feel of them stretching more then normal. "You've been reunited. That means that Paps-Papyrus hasn't been alone!” As often as Papyrus had visitors in person, his current high level of brain activity was a recent thing, and the thought of someone like Paps being without company for so long...lost to the void of his mind...even if previously he was thought to be unaware of it all, it's not right. 

Gaster chuckles ruefully, “In part it was wonderful. The state that my Soul and my magic left him in made speaking with him...difficult. His own Soul was unstable. Our conversations were often interrupted, and when they would begin again, he was often confused, even forgetful,” he says, the nature of his voice reminding you of G whenever he is upset. “But, yes,” Gaster goes on, his voice picking up in enthusiasm, a mix of perhaps being compared to one son, and having come into contact with another. “I am very happy to finally speak with him after all this time. He has grown to be as wonderful and spirited as I always hoped him to be. Even under the circumstances...his very nature is extraordinary. I am...proud, that he is my son,” Gaster speaks as though he is unused to the role of a parent, but to be ripped away from them so soon, you have little reason to wonder why that is. “I wish to rejoin them to make amends for that, but alas, I will never expect it to be so.” 

“B-but my being here must mean something? Unless, unless this means something happened to me," you say, frowning again. You had only just left the hospital, and with everyone's reaction to that... 

“Yes, and no," Gaster says, pulling you away from the memory of BP's shining eyes. "It is different then when it was with my son. You are well, Sirius Jones, but you lie in a deep sleep, as he did. They are trying to revitalize you, but the amount of magic that you used it removing me from my son has exhausted you in body and Soul.” 

His words leave you in a shock of silence.  

Did he say magic? But how could that be possible? You've never used magic before!  

“For the first time since our conversation began, you are incorrect, Sirius Jones,” he says, a smile in his voice that tugs both corners of the dark line that is his mouth upwards. “As you know, magic exists in all things, and although it many of your kind it has remained untapped, it is still there, within your very Soul. There exists many types of magic, and magic that can be active or passive in nature, but both of which anyone can have hold over mastering. The sort you used on myself is one that you have used previously, and it is primarily used in the art of healing, which your Soul is naturally inclined to above all else. A constant aspect is it is quick healing of oneself, faster then any other creature inclined towards other branches of magic. What you used on myself you also used on your friend, Greater Dog, the magical act strengthened when you made physical contact with him, and greater even so with your blood flowing free. This too is a constant, passive form of healing, but one that with direction, a need to help others, it can be used to heal anyone outside of your own self to some extent.” 

“I helped GD? But, I thought that was Fuku," you say, frankly more then a little dazed by all this to be jumping with joy at the fact that  _you have magic, holy cow_. Okay, maybe not too dazed to be partially excited about that.  

“It was, in great part, but you did aid in that endeavor, however slight. With practice, an unflinching need to help others, and more active spell casting, your magic can parallel her own.” 

“Then how did I manage to help...in this," you ask helplessly, gesturing around. Papyrus was asleep, he said, as you are now. Past tense. Does that mean Papyrus is...okay now? "There's no way that with everything the others have done to help Papyrus, that I could just, just wa-waltz in and make a difference.” This is just  _wrong_  to you. What sort of...cheap, unfair plot twist would that be with all of their hard work that you could just...show up out of the blue and... _fix_  things with a snap of your fingers?  

“Ah, but there in lies a key difference, in fact, that you have, and they do not," he says, raising a finger for emphasis. "Your humanity.” 

“My...humanity," you ask, your eyes narrowing, then widening as you try to see the significance of this. You have been told that human mages were incredibly powerful beings, people who's magic didn't come as naturally as breathing like with monsters, but once manifested and practiced upon, could be a force to be reckoned with. But the sort of practice required to help Papyrus is definitely something you haven't had.  

“From your time with Gerson and the queen, you have not come into knowledge about the nature of monster-human fusion," Gaster states. 

“N-no, I've not, I mean," you hesitate, feeling yourself blush, breaking your gaze from his again. "Only of, of a more, of a more personal, sort of, nature.” Speaking of anything even remotely intimate to the father of your Mate, someone you're fairly sure you have feelings of a romantic nature about, is right up there with your list of things you didn't ever want to do right with eating raw hamburger meat. 

Gaster chuckles again, obviously amused by your flustered state, but he waves a hand. “No, what I speak of is a fusion of a different sort. A complete  and longer lasting fusion of Souls that can only come about by the utter destruction of the physical shell of one creature in the practice, and the absorption of their Soul into the body of the other.” 

“W-what?” A chill sweeps down your spine at the very idea. It's such a thing that you've only ever heard of in video games, or lore. Of creatures killing and eating whole the Souls of others, for the sake of gaining power, of causing destruction, for the sake of greed, or simply pleasure. 

“It is true that in the past, such a thing has occurred,” he admits, his voice calm, almost clinical, and you can see the very cogs in his mind turning. “Human Souls, after death, can last much longer than monster Souls. But it was often that people would seek out others in order to slay them, and take their Souls, fusing with them in an effort to grow stronger. Monsters, being predominately made of magic, are more naturally attuned to it in their environment, but their physical shells are less stable than a human's in comparison, and are made more vulnerable for it. For a human to remove a Soul from a Monster is a simple task. A single human with a proper instruction on fusion could go out, and take Souls into themselves by the dozen with ease, thus their mages were stronger still for it during the war. Yet, they were capable of hiding their newfound EXP, or execution points. Yet, in the case of monsters, such a significant shift in power was not something easy to hide.” 

You're disturbed thinking about the slaughter that must have occurred by the hands of humans, and all for the sake of something like power. Execution points, it's certainly fitting. Still, how could it be easier to hide with humans of they were known for killing so many? He seems yourr expression of disquieted interest, must know and expect it already, and goes on, “Monsters are predominantly composed of magic, as...G has said previously, it is much like how humans are mostly that of water. To change so drastically the nature of ones Soul by fusing it with another, is to cause a shift in magic as well. Outwardly they would change dramatically in form, reaching a level of power even Boss monsters are incapable of doing. Soul Mates, when both physical vessels are intact, can reach a level of temporary fusion that does not cause outward, physical alterations, but are stronger still when it is more permanent, which occurs in the case of one vessel is not. A fusion of Boss monsters...of powerful mages...of both...would create a being of immeasurable skill, but not capability.” 

“What is it that you mean by that? Wouldn't they be naturally more powerful then any other?” 

“No. At the pinnacle of our creation...when we were Whole, as some would say, our levels of power were all exactly the same. Although all find it easier to reach out to one branch or the other as we are now...as when we were Whole, as we could be Whole through complete fusion again, it would be no different then as it was. Only, some are more aware of what possibilities there are then others. But tell a Soul Mate fusion that they can do healing....when they never considered it before...they could do it just as admirably at the next. A fusion of boss monsters or mages or both comes a chance of more experience, a knowledge of what they could do, a greater skill set from the start...that any other could also obtain over time, and be just as proficient at. It was not always that fusion came out of greed, but also out of a desire to remain together after the death of one of the Mates, mainly if the human has died, since human Souls always persist longer after death then Monsters and thus they have a greater chance at completing a fusion.” 

“So then, would they remain fused if the remaining Mate died?” But no, even if you were still privy to all of Gaster's knowledge, common sense tells you otherwise. If it were so easy, there would be far more Whole Souls in the world then there currently are. Time and knowledge alone would permit it. 

“That, too, is incorrect. Completely fused as one we attain a level of existence comparable only to when we were Whole, and it is possible to remain as such again for a time. Our physical vessels help keep us together as we are now, but when they crumble, are Mated Souls would not. Souls are not like physical objects, which, once broken, can never remain the same. If by happenstance you should fuse in such a way with your Mate, or Mates, it should remain as such.” 

“But, then such powerful beings must exist somewhere.” 

“Yes, they do. It is as Fuku believes, when we were first torn asunder, we fell as separate Souls from the heavens.” 

“Stars...Fuku thinks we were stars....” 

He bows his head in affirmation, raising it again just as slowly. “As I am...I am more scattered then I ever was...but the knowledge of that feeling remains in me, even still. It is...incomparable to anything in this known universe...but the fact is the same. When a star dies, their Souls become separate. Depending on that star's previous distance from earth, it takes decades for the light it emitted to go out. Souls are torn apart by the whims of space, brought together in sureness of time, should you look up to the sky and see a glimmer of light, it is as you have come to learn it to be: it is merely a glimmer of a star that once was, and, perhaps, who You were once upon a time. When a person dies, and their Mate is able to take their Soul up in quickly enough, they may fuse. And when finally the last physical vessel is gone, the Souls ascend. A star is born anew. But the Souls will become separate when the star gutters, and they will fall again.” 

“But, but there are still so many people in this world, humans and monsters, animals and...and levels of sentience I cannot even fathom!” Stars last for hundreds of years in the sky, there are very, very man of them, and yet still the human population alone has been said to be over abundant in numbers, let alone those people that might exist on other planets entirely. 

“This is true, but it is not always that one should ever even meet their Mate, or even if they Soul fuse, or know that they are capable of doing such. Some Souls fall to universes entirely separate from one another. And although matter is never created, nor destroyed, the....void, as it may be called albeit inappropriately, it is ever expanding. The word void itself though is incorrect, as it exists everywhere, between everything, with a magic of it's own, and is always in contact with something, somewhere..." he says, frowning in thought. With the change in his mouth the once jovial part of his face seems almost fearful, the other one full of sorrow. "Simply put, though, space is growing longer, with it, distance, and circumstance of meeting becomes less and less probable. To find one's Mate, even now, is...story book, as you  would have it described, Sirius Jones. In time, it may become nearly impossible. 

"The heavens are growing dark, darker, and darker still. I can only take selfish solace in the fact that even now, I remain Whole.” 

Whole. To be Whole is to be a Soul that has never shattered or torn, it is to never know that aching loneliness, and to fear it all the same. For it to not allow fusion would make sense. “You did not fuse with Papyrus, and you have not with me. Can you not when you're Whole to begin with?” 

“Yes, and no, again," he shakes his head softly. "As you know, my body is not as it once was. It is scattered throughout time and space, and so too was my Soul," he says, spreading his arms out to the space encompassing the two of you. "My soul was as free floating as the remainder of me, together, but not, until my sons tapped into the very magic that made me as I am today. The magic of this constant that I myself now exist within. The Between, the All. My Soul latched onto the greatest concentration of physical self that remains, my sons. Born of me,” he holds out his hands, a perfect hole in each of his palms. “Each received a portion of my Soul, and as both are different in Soul, and thus in personality, in mentality, in being, each reacted differently. G....my left hand, changed physically, and awoke. Papyrus, my right, changed mentally, and fell into a deep sleep. As I am a Whole, they have tapped further into their own magic, which they had already begun to master on an impressive level. 

“My Soul is intact, and yet not. As my physical vessel is apart of everything, it tentatively keeps my Soul Whole, and is mimicking the state of my vessel. Being apart of the All, but not. Given the stubbornness of your magic, what part was once within Papyrus is now with you. As it is...you only hold in your hands a portion of my Soul, one that seeks out it's other half relentlessly, like a boat cast to sea, no longer tied to a dock. The other stubbornly clings to G's.” 

“How is it that my magic...that it's keeping us...us apart?” 

“Should this fraction of my Soul form with yours, I could only ever be Whole again as your own Soul would be, should it fuse with my son's when again you ascend to the heavens. You magic recognizes that a Soul is most healthy when it is indeed fused with its Whole self and its Whole self alone. It is tying to keep it in the same state as it's other half, while fighting any inclination to fuse. It is possible for healthy, stable, Whole Souls contained properly within their physical shells to fuse with other Incomplete Souls temporarily, in the very act you mentioned previously, " he says, but lightens the mood for neither of you, Gaster going so far as to almost appear uncomfortable. "But it is not typically sought out by Whole Souls. Papyrus refused to have this fraction of my Soul fuse with his, and break from my other half entirely. Through our...mutual agreement, we remained separate, but my Soul clung to his through magic rather then continuing to exist scattered in space, even if it did not fuse.” 

“I don't want to fuse with you," you say right off, incredibly repelled in every way by the thought of  _shattering_  a Soul, and bile threatens to rise in your throat.  _Yeah, just, no._  

Gaster breathes out, the straight lone of his thin shoulders breaking for the first time since you've come to meet him. “Although I expected as such, I am still relieved to hear that. I would very much like to be one with myself again. Even if my physical form should dissipate," he sighs out while panic shoots up your spine.  

“We can't have that happen, either!" You insist, desperate to stay on track with what progress there has been in reviving Papyrus, and, however unexpected, Gaster's reunion with his sons. "Y-you said that you're happy to have met Papyrus. I don't want it to be the end of that! You still have G to meet, to talk to, to get to know again properly. And I don't want Papyrus to lose you again after all this time!” 

Gaster is smiling again even before you finish speaking. “Again you remind me why my son adores you so.” 

You flinch at the thought of your Mateship with him, and the state it's in. G doesn't want you, you know that, but the reminder....it hurts. That you may not see him again for who knows how long, even with his rejection, that hurts even more. You only just found him.  _Again._

“My son, I have been sad to observe, is more like myself in that regard then I would like...letting past mistakes varnish his chance at happiness...it is his character.” 

Mistakes, did he mean the incident with Papyrus? But you've known about this for some time! It was only when G came to know that you are his Mate that he rejected you. It has to be something else, but what then do you not know about your Mate in that regard? What other source of agony has he had to face that he would keep himself from the smallest chance at maybe, just maybe, being content with being with you? 

“It is as your friends have said. I know what was, and is. But it is not my place to say. Although I can predict how you may react to hearing the truth from myself...only G is the one that should give it to you.” 

“B-but how can I ask if he refuses to speak to me about it?” How could you dare to push and hope when he's already cast you aside? 

“Human curiosity has always been so astounding to me. Without it, you would all rot away to nothing," he says in an almost offhand matter, and then speaks firmly. "It will hurt, Sirius Jones, and Mateship or not, I have come to see that your feelings on the subject...the affects they will have on you...are no less valid. But please, do not repeat the mistakes of the past." The regret in his voice that immediately draws your attention as well as your concern. But Gaster is looking away from you, into the nothingness, the everything, and into his very memory. Is it not as an being of unfathomable knowledge that speaks to you now, but one of mortal experience, with mortal pains and weaknesses. “Agony caused by one's Mate is second only to the shattering of one's Soul, and for it to come as a result of something as a mistake such as miscommunication that's only possible while in physical form, a mistake that could sever any chances of fusion for perhaps a long, long time, it is an insult to our very Being.”  

“How...how is it that you could know that? As someone so Whole, what could you have seen that would give you the ability to warn me of something so absurd for me to do,” you have to ask, your voice shaking with unshed tears. You know how selfish you're being, how self-centered, but the amount of jealousy you feel towards one that would be Whole after all this time...when G will not even have you for a scant amount after coming to know with certainty that you are his, and his alone, it makes you bitter. 

But there is no anger or upset in his voice when he speaks again. It is perfectly neutral, and yet distracted still. “I have witnessed it, myself. Between others I loved. My parents, they were Mates and they let themselves remove their chance at happiness because of something as foolish as that. It resulted in their deaths, and the deaths of their other children.” 

His parents? His siblings? Regret seizes your heart, as you knew it would, but with such a force now that it halts the breathing in your chest. You can't speak, but Gaster does so in your place. 

“We have time before you wake, and you will wake, Sirius Jones," he speaks, his voice commanding, strong, demanding attention, and there it is, that hint of something intimidating waiting to be unleashed from within. "Whether that will be to the scattering of the portion of my Soul that you hold, we will see. But, in the mean time, I will do something for you as I did for my son as he slept. 

“I will tell you a story.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, again to my embarrassment, I want to apologize for the lateness of this chapter. Recently we missed a payment for our internet service, and I was unable to access the remainder of this story, and other materials, for reference. So, although I did work on this chapter in the meantime, my writing was sadly stunted. Also, I don't want to go into details, but for the past year or so my household has been under some serious financial strain. Recently, that has grown worse, and it has made working on this story a little more difficult for me. With recent events, I've been distracted from telling it, but whatever happens, no matter what, I aim to finish this story. I want to finish it, I really, really do! As it is, unless we lose service again, I will try to post a chapter once a week, but even should something else occur, this story will never be abandoned. I love it too much and I'm too greedy for your attention to have it any other way!  
> Oh, and this one was also a tad short, but the next bit is going to be uh pretty heavy and lengthy on it's own, so I wanted to end it there.  
> And pps, it was supposed to contain wingdings + hover over translations but AO3 hates me and working through that was taking waaaaaay too long and I didn't want to exclude people who use the mobile version to read this.  
> Uh, see you guys next time? Yes?


	18. Of Design and the Dissonant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stop right there folks! Before you skip this chapter, you need to know that nearly all of it's content is completely new!  
> It's no longer the tale of Gaster's family from the war, but a beginning exposition for the one he created after...Sans and Paps!
> 
> Chapter inspired by "A Faint Memory", by IAmSleepless, "We're Wild Animals (We Always Were)", by Weaver At the Loom

"After our failure, we were pushed into the earth." 

Just seconds after Gaster says those words, it's reached the peripherals of your vision, and encroaching wave of black. Your eyes sweeping over the jarring change, and you turn in place, looking to your left, and then back to your right. It's creeping beneath your feet, and smothering the whiteness above you when your breathing picks up. Sweat beads on your skin, the hair raises along your neck, your arms, and this space that was once so infinite, feels so incredibly small.  

You can hear your breath bouncing around you, striking walls you cannot see, and mingling with the sound of a steady drip, drip, drip from somewhere in the dark. When did you being breathing so loudly, how is it that your heart beat is not echoing with it, as strong as it is now in your ears?  

" _Gaster_ ," you hiss, searching fruitlessly for his familiar visage, and that’s what makes you afraid: that you can't see him, no matter how hard you try. You know he's there, you can feel his presence, you know. Not underground, not here.  

"I'm here," his voice comes with literal, physical weight, his hand pressing down on your shoulder and grounding you in the moment. He's here, I'm not alone, it's okay, you think with the incessant hiss of air between your teeth, swallowing thickly and leaning into his touch.  

As you begin to calm, you become aware of... this dull hum. Narrowing your eyes, you tilt your hair, listening, and that hum starts to take on meaning. It's growing closer, and the closer it becomes, the more sense it begins to make. Humming becomes individual sounds from separate sources, but all from the same direction. The noise shapes into meaning, into words, and you realize that people are talking. A great, many people.   

When the light comes, your eyes find it in a blink, latching onto it greedily, soaking it in, and things begin to make sense.  

He walks forth from an archway, his hand bared before him, and within it is a large, flickering flame. Asgore, king of all monster kind, and with his mouth set straight, into a tense line. The light from his spell penetrates the dark, but only so far, far enough to where you can see the path laid out in front of him, the very one that leads to where you stand, but it does nothing to the darkness beyond the stone walls of the path he's stepped out of. 

When his great girth exits the tunnel, and he steps across the pathway, you see someone else. Someone in a plate of steel, wearing a helmet set with a great spike, and their shoulders are wide. They're almost as tall as the king themselves, and the torch they bear does nothing to penetrate the slits in their helm as they peer around in the gloom. 

Walking before their liege, they make not a sound across the floor, moving with predatory grace across the pathway diagonally. You watch the reach of their light mark it's way across the floor—and then it stops, marking an abrupt end in the path. They shift their weight, a rock skitters, falls, and seconds pass, but no sound comes. 

"The grand cavern, we've arrived," the king speaks, his voice deep, and rich. It's everything you would imagine a king to sound like. His knight turns their helm towards him, and gestures with a hand.  

At once several figures appear from behind him, holding torches of their own. You know not what they're doing until they begin to make a line along the drop in front of you... and then another behind. There's a great drop behind your back you entirely failed to notice, one that becomes clear as one soldier stops a few paces from your left, and another a few from Gaster's right. Asgore begins walking once more, moving as the soldiers mark the path, and with him come more... many more. 

You stand upon a bridge made out of pure rock, hanging above a void that for all you know could very well go on forever. The number of monsters that cross onto the path is...remarkable. There's more here than in the theater where BP held his play, but they appear so very different than the people that watched your friend perform. 

Despite the darkness, the firelight is enough for you to see the torn state of their dress, the packs they carry on their backs, in their hands, in clouds of magic or elsewhere. If they have eyes, they are downcast, if they have mouths they are downturned, if they walk it's at a slow, sluggish pace. You see clothing that is torn, fur and scales and slime covered in mud and soot. And worse, something gray, and very unsettling.  

_Refugees, they're all refugees. The war... it just ended._

There are so, so many. Very few have much beyond what they carry with them, a handful of carts making their way across the path, but all of which are close to breaking under the weight of the many items they each hold. Most of it is food and blankets, never do you see something as cumbersome as a chair or bed. It's frightening how many carry nothing at all, and several bare with them other monsters, those too frail to walk on their own.  

It's understandable in any case that the army would be smaller than the number of civilians, but beyond those that line the path, armored units are incredibly lacking. You see maybe twenty or so beyond the initial ten, plus their commander, and more than half of that takes up the rear.  

"Our central army was decimated," Gaster speaks up for the first time since the monsters emerged. "What remained behind did what they could to insure that as many of our people made into the caves as possible. What you see now is a mere hair's amount of our kind. The others were lost to us." 

A flash of white in the crowd draws your immediate attention—Toriel, surrounded by little bodies, children flanked by their elders so that they do not stumble into the dark. She carried in her arms two children, on her back another three, held in makeshift slings. One of the children her arms are crying, mimicking the loud sobbing of several others in the group, but she mummers to them, singing a sweet, melodious tune that keeps them all from stopping and succumbing to their loss entirely.  

There are other groups like hers, and many of the adults carry the children who cannot walk.  

There are so very many of them all, but they bare with them so little. How ever did they manage to survive for so long, magical or not? 

"When the war began plans were immediately laid out as to what should be done, should things not fall in our favor," Gaster states in answer to your question. When he turns in place, you watch him curiously for a moment before turning as well, blinking when the long drop behind you has been replaced by yet another cave entrance. This one is much larger than the last, with stone cut edges made by hand or magical ability, you cannot tell, but there is a chamber beyond it.  

It isn't as large as the cavern the monsters walked above before, but it's large enough to fit the king's girth as he stands inside, as well as the great many containers it holds.  

There are great casks and small barrels of stone and wood, large greats and bags stacked on bags stacked on even more bags, piled high in great mounds. You can't make out the back walls of the chamber, so innumerable are the resources within, but there's a fine order about them that you know must keep certain foods and liquids apart of from others.  

"My kind were prepared for the worst," Gaster says, the words shared between the king and the monsters at his side muffled. Unlike the guards flanking the entrance, these people inside wear fine robed clothing but look no less tired than the others you had seen previously. "His advisors, royal forman, scientists, they all played their part. There were other such chambers like this one filled with materials like wood and brick, steel and fiber. We had the means to rebuild, but there was a lot to be done. There were tunnels you see, some natural, others made by the efforts of my predecessor, but the farther you went in, the cruder they became. You can see how this was a problem with our numbers and, some, with our varying sizes. We had little time to mourn, we had to act, or die."  

Gaster turns his shoulders again, his long stride taking him out of the doorway of the chamber, and you begin to follow... until a flash of green flickers between the king and one of his mummering helpers. 

You squint for a moment, narrowing your vision and hoping to catch onto whomever it was, but the glowing monster has disappeared within from sight once more. Shaking your head, you follow after your guide. 

When you step out of the chamber, a wave of heat hits your skin that instantly causes sweat to erupt on your brow, and tendrils of your hair dance in a flurry around your face. Not only has the temperature changed dramatically, but so has the lighting. Whereas previously you could barely see in front of your face, everything but the farthest shadows is blanketed in light. A strange sound fills your ears, one that distinctly sounds like earth shifting. It's a brubiling noise, punctured by spatters of crackling that only belongs to the sputtering of a fire, and there's a red glow in the air accompanying it.  

_No way._

Gaster is a few feet ahead of you, standing on the edge of the path of red earth you walk upon to meet with him, and he stands so poised, despite being on the edge of a cliff face that leads directly to a pit of rumbling magma. You've never seen a volcano in your life, well, except for on television or in books, but this isn't a mountain, it's an entire ocean, a rolling mass of various shades of reds marred by floating chunks of blackened, liquefied rock. It's terrifying and it's gorgeous.  

"The underground was excavated years before the war began by interested researchers, but it wasn't utilized until a short time previous to my birth," the monster at your side explains, and you think that if it weren't for the manipulation of this memory you may not be able to hear him at all. "The former royal scientist, and advisor to the king, wanted to use the natural resources provided to us underground to create something that would benefit the whole of the kingdom, and beyond." 

Gaster tilts his chin in one direction, and off over the rolling blood of the earth you spied something looming. Like a camera shot in a movie brought in close to a new point of interest, you vision zoomed in and focused on the hulking mass of metal. 

It was rounded, and massive in shape. If magma was the world's lifeblood this is it's heart: resembling a furnace, it's covered in thick, interweaving piping made out of pure steel, it's three largest valves erupting from its head and leading upwards into the dark. 

"This is the Core. Created by my predecessor and inspired by the technology of long lost civilizations-- of the Uirn, the Atlanteans-- the Core draws it's power from the geothermal energy of the planet," Gaster goes on, the firey landscape around you casting his white visage in an orange glow. "Using it, Mort sought to provide free energy to the world of the above, to light the dark in order to make things safer, easier, and to act as an olive branch between our races." He chuckles gently without mirth. "A bribe, if you will. Humankind could not hope to control much less enter such a creation on their own without help from those who made it. If they wanted the Core, they had to have us, as well. But it was taking too much time to build, and by the time the onslaught reached it's peak, a new fear formed within them. Shortly before their death, Mort saw grimly that keeping us alive under the surface would be its ultimate use." 

"Mort? That's what they're name was?" Death. It reminds you of Gaster's name to be honest--a thought you realize after the fact is pretty rude to consider. 

_I really need to get used to this sharing thoughts thing._

When Gaster doesn't smile, you think that you've honestly offended him this time. But no, he's shaking his head.

"You're right to assume as much. Mort was one of my parents." 

You make a startled noise of surprise at this, and have to shake your head when an outright wave of deja vu overcomes you. Have we had this conversation before? "Y-your parents?" 

He hums in affirmation, and there's that smile, devoid of the humor you previously hoped for. "Yes... a story for another time, I think." 

With this he walks across the earth, and you hesitate to follow, a mess of curiosity and foreboding in your stomach telling you that it isn't one that ends on a happy note. 

Gaster's silence doesn't last. It lingers long enough for the ground beneath your feet to shift into blue steel, for the atmosphere to grow cooler, and for walls to take the place of where open air once was. The memory has shifted again, bleeding into a new environment, one where the two of you stand inside a long, large corridor. There's a hum in the air of machinery, gas you cannot see hissing somewhere in the building, and the natural lighting as been replaced by artificial. But it's the same color as the world outside it, casting Gaster's already shadow filled eyes to something deeper. 

"The Core is very different from the remainder of the Underground as it is now. The electricity is currently on standby, a safe mode, but it's no less maze like as the caverns that surround it," Gaster's voice nearly echoes in the hall, yours and his feet clanking across the metal of the floor as you take a stroll at a leisurely pace. "Monsters tend to protect their homes with puzzles and traps, means of deterrence to keep out humans where they should not be, or whom may wish to do them harm, but it's also a means of keeping both of our kinds from stumbling into something unsafe. The Core is no different. The technology within and the Core itself is very dangerous, as well as unstable. It is technology based on which is long since lost and also made of inferior materials. It takes constant attention in order to remain up and running, but it's also filled with puzzles to keep people from stumbling into something they should not. Pathways change like clockwork without rhyme or reason. The only way you can locate its heart, truly, is by means of following in the stead of the royal scientist," he stops in places peering over his shoulder. You follow his line of sight and see that the few feet you've walked are gone…replaced by a solid wall bathed in color. 

_When…?_

"Mort, like my son, was capable of teleportation. When anyone wanted in, no matter who they were, they had to follow them. Except for one person: myself. Before Mort perished, they left behind specific instructions for me to follow in the case that the war was lost, and they died. 

"I entered the innermost chamber of the Core and the darkness was pushed back." 

You blink, such a tiny motion made in a fraction of a second, but in that time the world has been replaced all over again. 

You're standing a wide, cobbled street that's teeming with life: monsters are everywhere. In the air, along the sidewalks of buildings, hauling carts that rumble past as you remain standing in the middle of the road. There are food stalls and laughter, monsters waving out rounded windows with flat bottoms and walking along with their friends and family. For a moment you think that maybe you're in a normal monster populated town, but the air is strangely still, and the street lamps holds not back the night, but the ever present gloom of the Underground. 

But everyone is so very different than they were previously, there's hope and joy and contentment in their faces.

They're all learning to truly live again. 

"This is amazing," you say aloud, marveling at the medieval style architecture around you, but also at the personal touches that have been added to make an otherwise lifeless place full of color. There are flower beds that are carefully tended to, murals painted across the surfaces of houses and businesses, glass in a myriad of hues filling windows, and, in the distance, you spy a wide canal, probably made for more water faring monsters in mind. 

"Monsters are nothing if not optimistic," Gaster states. "Most of the time, anyways. It was our magic and our resources that made this possible. If not for them, we would have been lost. 

"And, as always, the was the Core," he leaves off, striding towards the canal with you close behind, if not more than a little distracted. More then once you apologize for nearly running into someone, but then recall that you aren't really there at all, the monster citizens failing to respond acting as an off putting reminder. 

_This is so surreal._

Gaster ascends a short slope, walking across a stone bridge that spans the canal but stopping at it's center to look over the side. Closer to it now, it's much bigger than you thought, and you think you spy someone moving along the dark waters beneath. "We sought to find other means of utilizing the Core in order to make the Underground habitable," he says, "From the remains of the old team, I brought together a group to maintain the Core and brainstorm. The Core, as I've mentioned, creates electricity. In doing so, it emits ozone. Using that, we were able to clean water. With this, we could maintain plant life and wash clothing but, also, when pollution from the Surface would later become an issue we could also make it consumable again." 

Yours and Gaster's distorted reflections gaze back up at you, and you see yourself start when childish laughter reaches your ears. 

Looking away from the water, you see as a monster leads a child along by one of their four furred hands, a mask of uttermost most fondness on the possible parents scaled maw when they laugh with the younger monster about a conversation you fail to catch. 

"We were surviving, thriving at a slow pace, but we were making due. Even the king and queen had their own children, a fallen human and the monster prince that found them." 

So Gaster knew then, about the human. Considering his role, you're hardly surprised with how close he must have been to the king, but there's also his current omnipresent knowledge to consider. 

_Then he must know then, how that ended…_

"I had my team of scientists, and the Core was a marvelous piece of engineering, but it was a replica of lost technology, and it's materials stand ins for metals that the ancient, great civilizations coveted and took with them when they were each swallowed into oblivion. 

Simply put, the Core does not always run smoothly, and it is demanding no matter what the case. In order to help keep it from overheating, ice from the colder area of the Underground had to be carried via water to its depths. Attention was kept on it around the clock, but despite that, the others had their own lives to live. I was one of the few on my team without living, close relatives, I often found myself to be…rather lonely." 

Are you imagining things, or does he sound… _wistful?_

"It was bound to happen eventually I suppose. I remembered my own family life from the war, and saw those around me building their own. To have one of my own, of some sort, was only natural. But…I knew not where to begin." Placing a hand on his chest, where his complete Soul must be hidden away, Gaster sighs. "As someone Whole, I am perfectly capable of fusing with another temporarily. In that act, we could share magic, and create a physical vessel that would call upon a Soul to fill it. But although a Whole Soul could even find pleasure in temporary fusion, it is rarely desired," you could almost laugh when his face twists into a show of comical disgust. "But no, I would not have it. I wanted to do it in a way that made it so the life I created solely came from myself." 

 _Souly, you might say,_ an old voice snickers in your head, and you groan inwardly. He would love to hear that one.  _But how would that work? Magic?_

"Exactly," Gaster answers your question aloud, meeting your eyes. "With a combination of science and magic, I made a shell for a body to reside within, the materials of which I garnered from my left hand." He shows his left palm, face up, with it's perfectly shaped, circular puncture. "From there it was only a matter of calling upon a Soul to fill it." 

The buildings of the capital are removed, the wide open space tucked into something more limited, and with the replacement of the dark causes you to squint for a moment. You almost think that you have returned to the same location, so to speak, as where the two of you had been speaking in the very beginning, when you first woke up to meet W.D.Gaster. But then you become aware of the floor beneath your feet, with it's perfectly spaced tiles that reminds you of a dream you had once.  

There are white walls to match the white flooring, but the space is great, and the ceiling high, with square lights impressed into it at irregular patterns that are currently turned off. There are several island tables in the room all of which have slick, flat tops, and closed cabinets tucked into their bodies. Atop them are a variety of things, a sink here, a long rack of test tubes there, a strange entanglement of  clear, plastic tubing, glass, and metal framing there. Liquids of all colors can be seen the various beakers and flasks, flames are lit under some, and petri dishes are on nearly every table, but what's more common are the paper sheets. Tucked into folders, books, on notepads, and clipboards, there are documents everywhere. 

Along the walls are machines are various sizes, with a wide arrange of blinking buttons and flip levers, screens depicting data that varies between a series of scrolling numbers or a wavering line on one console that splits into three. On one screen you think you spy a heart, but it's strangely inverted. Save for the machines themselves, what little lighting there is cast by a few lamps around the room, one of which sits on a desk next to a turned off monitor. The hanging shadows lends the room a comfortable, sleepy atmosphere, but also a strange one. It reminds you vaguely of being in a school after hours, when everyone else has gone home, lending it a quality of liminality that would fade with the coming of a new work day.

This place is a laboratory, and there's something else familiar about it, as if you've been in here previously. 

"We are within the Core, in one of it's innermost laboratories. Using the power of the Core, we fueled many of our experiments. I used it, too, to help in my endeavor," Gaster says, and you watch as someone appears from a side of the room. You hadn't noticed him, given the whiteness of his coat and the back of his skull, but when this previous version of Gaster turns, you see that he's holding something. 

Gaster's old appearance is noticeably different from his current one. His skull is exactly that, an actual skull with deep pitted sockets that have grooves along their bottom most edges, making him look faintly tried. Like G, his eyes have their own little lights, his of which are distinctly white. The scarring that would later grace his skull have not yet appeared, and he even as a noticeable nasal bone.  

Underneath his white lab coat he wears a black, turtleneck sweater, black slacks, and matching boots, and just escaping his white sleeves is further hint of his black sweater beneath. Looking between him and the current Gaster, the differences are striking. 

Reading your thoughts, Gaster smiles, and you let out a startled laugh: he looks more now like something a child would think up, rather then if Death themselves worked at a cryogenics facility.  

 _"Look at_ _that,"_ the old Gaster is speaking, drawing your notice, and you see that he's fixated on the bundle cradled in his arms.  

 _Is...is that?_  

Your breath stills in your throat, and you watched in avid fascination as this version of Gaster walks slowly across the room, in your direction. He uses his right hand to reach up and widen the space where  _his_  face must be,  _G's face._  

 _"Those eyes, they remind me of them. So wide, so curious,"_ he goes on, unaware of the audience watching, picking up on every careful word he utters. There's reverence there, in it’s purest form, as a father looks upon his son in absolute adoration.  

You dare not draw closer as Gaster passed you, his tall stature giving no hint of the baby in his arms away, but you're afraid of breaking the moment, of watching it shatter away, it seems to fragile.  

The issue of Gaster's sheer length of body is solved when he walks over to a wheeled chair next to a desk pushed against one of the walls. The monster crosses one leg over the other, and leans back comfortably, his gaze not wavering for an instant. 

"Approach," Gaster's current self speaks, startling you for an instant. He smiles apologetically, but motions again towards the two, even as he makes no move to go over himself. "You can see him, if you wish." 

You look back to the scene, but need not much more urging than that, and approach them with quick, measured steps.  

Sitting down, Gaster stills manage to clear your head by a few inches but he doesn't look up as you go to stand beside him, and your eyes go right away to the tiny person in his arms. 

His face is a pristine white. There are no cracks splintering from his large, circular eyes, and their unwavering lights are like two polished silver dollars in his head. His mouth is small, downturned not in anger or frustration, weariness or pain. G is a story that has just begun, and filled with unlimited potential.

You don't know what to think upon seeing him like this. There's a burning sensation in your vision, but whether it's from seeing a time in his life wherein he was utterly precious--and he is, Stars, he's _adorable_ \--or if it's from knowing so much of what came to pass, you don't know. All you _do_ know is that your emotions have formed into a thick stone, settling in your gut like a weight hitting the bottom of an ocean.

When his eyes shutter close for a split second, the Gaster of the past chuckles in surprise,  _"Blinking, are you? I wonder who gave you that,"_ he asks this much smaller version of himself, as if there's no question at all to it.  

"I was fascinated by him from the beginning, the shaping of his feet, his eyes, his magic," Gaster narrates from behind you, this former version of him reaching under the ends of the blanket G is tucked into to reveal a foot, perfectly skeletal, and so incredibly small.  

Your Soul stutters in your chest when G makes a sound, wiggling in Gaster's grip, who smiles delightfully at what he's just discovered, " _A physical reaction to knismesis; your_ _magic makes you_ _tick_ _lish,"_ he asks, amusement and awe thick is equal parts as they escape from his toothy mouth.  

"Monster children can turn out to be so different physically, mentally, and magically from their parents. But by the time he woke to the world, I had already begun see myself in him." Gaster's voice has become more airy, distracted. "My son..." 

 _"..._ _my Sans."_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of Gaster's parents is still canon, but I was proven correct in that it's a tad out of place here. Instead, it will be featured in "The Moments Between" later, which will feature chapters w/content that does not fit pacing of the story and/or has redundant information.  
> A chunk of the next chapter has already been written and polished up, I hope to have it and the rest up soon!  
> I hope ;A;


	19. Of the Deep and the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold! A nervous wreck, in written format!!
> 
> Inspired by "City of Twilight", by Raujika.

A sound of startled protest escapes your lips when a blush of light paints the desk blue, but upon seeing its source you choke on your next breath. It's a flower, sprouting from the tiled floor itself, with sprigs of darker, blue grass spreading out around it. It must be four feet high at least, and although it's composition is simple, what it's doing is astonishing. 

More like it appears blooming all around you, one after another, after another springing from the earth until the shadows are painted in a rich, otherworldly glow. The grass lengthens, brushing the bottoms of your elbows, and the walls of the lab fade into the dark. Where once the air was warm, it now cools, and drops of dew bead across the surface of your clothing. The smell of ozone is in the air, and with it the sound of a waterfall you cannot see in the distance.  

Although the lab walls have gone, you see that enormous cliff faces of blue-black rock have sprung up, reaching onward into the gloom until they seem to vanish into the stars 

Stars. There are so many of them. Blue, glowing lights hanging far above you. Blue, why are they so blue? But something tells you that there is something wrong about them.  

 _"…_ _all we had to know the stars by were picture books and some damn gems embedded in the ceiling."_  

The crystals embedded in the rock of the stone sky above you do not twinkle as stars would, and you know if you were to stand there, watching them, they would never move. They're beautiful, but you can't imagine going your entire life using them as stand-ins for the real things. This place feels outside of the realm of time. There's no wind, no rustle of the grass, and beneath the roar of water it's so very, very quiet.  

Until someone laughs, and a shudder shoots across the grass, making you twitch with the suddenness of it--and again when someone jumps up from the grass and latches onto one of the glowing flowers nearby.  

Sans' hands tug the flower down mercilessly to his height, a definitely impressive height of three or so feet when compared to how utterly tiny he was before. Not waiting for the memory to shift your vision for your sake, you dart across the grass in his direction, halting nearby and marveling at what you've discovered.  

Sans has gone from being a baby in Gaster's arms, to being toddler-sized. Rather than being swallowed up in a comfy blanket, he's now wearing his very own pair of black shorts, a blue, drawstring, pullover hoodie displaying a familiar  _FASA_  logo, and a pair of untied sneakers with a no hint of socks in sight.  

 _Oh my god-!_ You can literally _feel_  the tears in your eyes now, and you're 110% sure it's because you didn't know anyone could get any cuter until now! 

Sans giggles-- _okay, he seems insistent on proving me wrong_ \--and speaks for the first time since the memory began:  _"Undyne has a big head!"_  

The snort you make is positively criminal. _He's a little shit,_ you think, immediately followed by, _I have to tell Undyne._  

 _"Undyne has a big head!"_  

 _D_ _id that flower just_ talk? 

Sans cackles at his brilliance while you stand there in shock, even more so interested in these fantastical flowers then you were previously, but you're interrupted when Gaster walks up from behind Sans. It's Sans' diverted attention and Gaster's physical state that tells you that this isn't your version of Gaster, and as the monster looks down at his son, it's with the same fondness from before, if only slightly tempered. 

 _"What is this Echo Flower displaying visually,"_ he asks Sans, not taking away the hand that holds a pen against the surface of a clipboard that his other, scarred one, has tucked against his arm. 

" _Bioluminescence_ ," Sans chirps, the youthful boyishness of the excitement in his voice prompting a renewed smile from you at once. " _And the principal chemical reaction in bioluminescence is primarily derived from interactions between the pigment luciferin and the enzyme luciferase!"_  

 _Oh. Well, then,_  you blink dumbly, sending a wide glance to a black-robed Gaster when he at last joins you in viewing the past once more. Despite your bewilderment you can hardly stop yourself from smiling at the scene before you like an idiot---c'mon, how often did _anyone_  get to see their friends at this age without having grown up with them?  

 _If we even count as friends anymore,_  you think glumly, your smile waning ruefully.  _Still, I can't deny how cute he is right now..._  

 _"Very good,"_ the former Gaster lowers his chin in poised approval, causing Sans to beam up at him.  

"Sans was a very inquisitive child from the beginning. Such as myself and Mort, he displayed a remarkable eagerness to learn what he could of the sciences," current-Gaster remarks, watching as he and his son move on, Sans practically sprinting ahead whereas past-Gaster follows at a more languid pace with an occasional note jotted down. "Our interests in specific branches aligned, and much of the time I spent working I also shared with him." 

The curious pair of monsters eventually make it to a break in the grass that comes in the form of several wide puddles that appear like sapphire mirrors embedded into the earth, until Sans comes along to shatter their facade, splashing along with careless abandon. Gaster, on the other hand, steps around them with nary a thought, his light feet and long legs finding footholds with ease.  

"He listened with rapt attention to every new theory I presented, his presence a perfect source of inspiration for every new idea that came to be in my mind during that time," your Gaster goes on, moving along as his old self does, only without worry about striding through the water. You avoid the puddles until the earth gives away under your weight and your shoe slips in--and although the expected cold comes faintly, when you remove your foot it doesn't come away wet. 

 _This is just a memory, a dream, the rules of reality don't really apply here at all._  

"He was my companion in the lab, as well as in the field," Gaster says, stopping to watch as Sans waves excitedly at something you think looks like a gelatin mold from afar, until it wiggles and expands, sending a greeting his way and revealing it's monsterhood.  

"But what he enjoyed most were the readings I gave him," his father says, not reacting when Sans bounds ahead, and the earth under his bare feet--bare?--turns into wood. The wood gives way to a large, thick blanketed bed complete with a blue-black color scheme, save for it's white sheets, which are revealed when Sans tosses the blankets back and climbs in.  

You don't question it when this puzzle piece image of a bedroom comes into being in the middle of a field of grass and flowers, silently observing when the old Gaster strides over to join his baby bones Sans. Sans grins broadly upon seeing the book tucked under his arm, moving around in bed until Gaster and climb in with him. The older monster sits with his back against the headboard of the bed, while Sans tucks himself into his side, opening the book up while his father holds onto it. 

"I was never very good at the parent part of his life," Gaster admits. "Beyond his education, I didn't always understand his various and wide whims of fancy. Sometimes he cried just to cry. Asgore said it was natural, it baffled me," he shakes his head, shrugging with an unserious frown at the memory.  

"But storytimes I could get right," he says, the firmness in his tone displaying his certainty in this. "Sans' favorites were texts on astrology. The stars, the planet's, even the zodiac. He inhaled every word," he says, and you notice when the former-Gaster tilts the book he's holding with Sans that there's a traditional depiction of a star on it's cover, paired with the title: "The Algorithm of the Stars". 

 _That actually sounds lovely,_  you hum to yourself, liking the sound of the name although the content of the book is probably well above your pay grade. _If earlier was any indication..._  

"When he cried after a story, only then did I know better," Gaster goes on, Sans patting at the book's front when his father from the memory closes it shut. Laughing soundlessly, he gives in, opening it up once more and apparently settling in for the long haul. "He always wanted to hear more, so I kept reading. I would read and read..." Gaster trails off when Sans' eyes grow heavy, and heavier. It takes very little time before Sans gives in and is out cold, but his father is no different. He slumps into the wood of the bed, closing the book shut, sighing with closed eyes, and not opening them again. "I slept most often those days while losing consciousness at my son's side. 

"It was... I think... the most peaceful period in my life."  

You turn your face to Gaster curiously, but he's walking away again, his face impassive, guarded and cloaked in a smile of perfect neutrality. You glance back at the sleeping figures in the bed, but already the image is blurring, fading gradually into the dark. Picking up your feet, you follow after Gaster, unable to ignore the sight of the flowers shrinking, spiraling back into the ground, as if their biological clocks have been set to reverse. The grass shrinks with them, and cobblestones appear along the path as you walk.  

In a matter of minutes the buildings of the monster's first city come forth from the wells of Gaster's memory once more, and you note with interest that there are actual trees decorating the sides of the path.  

When you hear giggling you have expect it to be Sans again, but the child that shoots passed your legs is not in the least bit humanoid. If anything that seem like a gravitating, shiny ball, with a single wide eye, and a rune like pattern set into their back.  

They aren’t the last kid you spy, as more and more begin to walk past you, some much more slowly, and others at a quicker pace. The corners of your lips involuntarily lift but you do nothing to stop them, overcome by the wave of cuteness heading down the path all around you 

It's the backpacks over some of their shoulders, hanging by a few antlers and horns, carried by magic, and so on that gives away where they're all headed off to. Not to mention the expected scattering of complaints as well as excited mummerings for the day ahead. There are not only children but parents as well, some holding the hands of the smallest of them as they move along, others carrying them to their destination. Fur and scales, wings and leather, goo, fire, and even a pair of could-be twins made out of shimmering water, the children are as varied as monsterkind comes. 

 _"What do you think Maggie is going to teach us today?"_  

 _"I-I b-bet my pea plant, I bet it grew two-three feet tall_ _over_ _night_ _, just light vwwwosh!"_  

 _"-did you read the chapter on Hubble's Law and it's_ _deriv_ _ation_ _from Lematarie's equations on the_ _expansion_ _of the universe?"_  

Recognizing Sans' excited spiel at once, you peer over to see the little squirt walking alongside a long-legged, dear like monster who looks better suited for a college course then anyone else around them. Now that you notice it, there do seem to be a number of other people closer to your age around then you expect, but you assume at first glance that they must be adults taking the kids to school.  

 _And what_ _'s Sans talking about_ _? The Big Bang and quantum theory?_  First that book and now this, you're starting to sense Sans' development into his current position as a scientist today.  

"Like many children, Sans began schooling at a young age," Gaster says to you over the chattering of children, smiling more genuinely now then he has been previously as Sans talks nonstop to his friend, grinning himself all the while. "In our society, education is based around interest and ability, rather than age," Gaster explains, peering around at the monsters around the two of you.  

 _"Dude, that's like, two chapters ahead,"_ Sans' friend remarks but they don't mean it in a rude way, smiling easily with half mast eyes, and making you think that they’ve more then come to expect this by now.  

 _"I know! But isn't space just so cool,_ " Sans asks brightly, and you nearly trip over your feet when you think you see his eye lights  _change into literal stars._ You have to sforce yourself not to run over to him to get a better glimpse of him, even at this age he's still so adorable, but Gaster's presence stops you from doing so. 

"As you have guessed, Sans had an avid interest in astrophysics from the beginning. He started with a set of general courses, as we all do, covering the basics. Math, science, writing, art. But after basics are covered, monster students are placed in classes covering materials of their choosing. Sans, as predicted, quickly found footing in more science oriented teachings," Gaster says, and looks ahead. You peer down the street, beyond the crowd, and see a structure in the distance. It's framed with a scattering of gardens, trees, and glowing magical lamps, and is made up of a close scattering of several buildings. It's front entrance is a courtyard with a sign near it's large, open doors, fine lettering spelling out: "New Home Central School."  

 _New Home?_ It's a simple name, definitely not the sort you would pick out of a culture supported by magic and non-human entities, but it works.  _If this were a novel written by a human it would probably be something barely_ _pronounceable_ _._  

"Given his time spent with myself, Sans quickly ascended to high levels then other beginners, but then higher still," Gaster stops in the crowd, turning to look down at you, and you watch as Sans and his friend disappear with the tide, into the building. "Human tutors would call him a prodigy, and he had an outstanding interest in all that he could find on something that was not available for us to view. An interest that caused him to eat through the materials given to him, until he had nothing else." 

This causes you to frown, but it strikes you that this would makes sense. Their resources had to have some sort of limit since they were locked into the Underground, away from the heavens and any new incredible feats reached relating to the exploration of space. Sputnik, the moon landing, the Hubble telescope... 

 _I grew up learning about all of them, they were just facts in a_ _book for me, old news, but the monsters c_ _ouldn't_ _even see the sun_ _beyond some pictures_ _._  

"The guilt you feel is unwarranted." 

Your eyes skate away from Gaster's figure, dancing along the passing heads of students, a part of you marveling even then at their diversity despite the feeling rolling in your stomach. "I grew up learning about atrocities done to other humans, by humans. It's no surprise that we would do something like this, and I know I directly didn’t have anything to do with it! But," you hesitate, rubbing your arm subconsciously with one hand. "The ones that did this are dead, but I  _am_  a human, and someone has to regret what happened." 

"To learn from the past, it is the only way to avoid a repeat of what once was," Gaster states out loud, and you meet his face, seeing the gentle smile there. "That you do at least regret, it is a start." 

You don't know how to form into questions properly how much you wish you could help more, but Gaster, you think, must understand. Refocusing on the present point in the memory, you return to the matter of Sans, and ask, "What did he do if he had nothing left?" 

"In time, after my departure, Sans earned his degrees in quantum and astrophysics, among other fields, but while I was still in his life, he spent much of his time with either myself, or Gerson, or studying alone," he says, and the scenery, once again, changes around you. Replacing the walls and roads of the capital is the familiar glow of blue from previous, but the fields of blue grass are a distance away, and your feet have become swept up by water.  

The rush of the falls is much, much greater now, and when you turn in place, considering the location, you spy Sans, alone, standing at the edge of a large drop.  

Water cascades over the ledge, tumbling into a nothingness softened by the haze of condensation. Sans is still small, but the current is not too much that he risks danger of being swept over the side. Still, a nudge of worry at seeing a child so close to danger urges you to stand beside him, and you notice that unlike the last time you were here, he is completely alone. 

"Including Undyne, he had very few friends of his age at the time. Sans was happy focusing on his work, and considering the mechanics of space and time. But he could never see the world he studied so diligently. It made him restless, and I guilty." 

Unprepared for this, you look up at him for answers, but see that his face has turned away, and his smile has disappeared. When he speaks it's in a low hush, sounding tired, strained.  

"I brought Sans into a world that would be without stars. He could dream of them, wish of them, but he couldn't see, or be among them as he so desired. They may as well have been fairy tales." 

Sans looks out into the void of the Underground, where a seemingly endless stretch of glowing crystals reach out into the unknown. But they are not endless, their glow too faint to stop them from fading eventually into the dark. Unlike the stars, they do not seem to form shapes of particular patterns, and you know if you were capable of drawing close enough, all they would only be pretty rocks. 

Standing beside the younger version of the person who become you Soul Mate, who was your mate even then, you glance down at his visage. The unadulterated excitement from earlier is gone, and his round eyes barely see the gems in embedded in the rock. He's become tired of them, you realize. He's only a handful of years old, and they're nothing compared to the real things. 

"I made a decision." 

Looking over your shoulder, you see Gaster facing away from his son, his hands tucked behind his back once more in a clinical fashion. "If it was within my power, I would do what I could, however I could, to bring down the barrier separating monsterkind from the world above. My species would rejoin the humans, we would be freed from our imprisonment, and my son would see the stars." 

 

"I delved into my work like never before." 

On a walkway affixed to the Core's upper levels, the two of you look into the heart of the machine. It's bright, positively dazzling, and from this angel it reminds you much of a witch's cauldron. It's flame is the sea of lava, far, far below, whole stories of twisting and yet perfectly symmetrical metal reaching into it's the depths.  

Nearby is the familiar figure of once-Gaster, only a few feet away and to your left. You think perhaps he's smiling, or maybe it's trick of the light, but there is a rather satisfied aura about him.  

Down the walkway you think you spy several other monster's also wearing lab coats of a similar fashion as Gaster, and each tailored to fit their unique body types. A few carry clipboards, make notes and reading data, but one comes from the other end of the walkway, approaching Gaster in an excited hurry. Gaster takes the presented sheaf of paper from the sharp toothed monster, reminding you much of BP but with gray fur and an overbite, and it's when the once-Gaster turns his head that you notice something odd.  

One of his pupils are gone, and the other has become strangely ring-like. If he were human, you would think that his pupil is simply dilated, but Gaster doesn't have pupils.  

"My exposure to the magic had already begun to change me, physically," your Gaster comments. "It was not, at the time, something I was greatly focused on what with our then current plan of action though, so the effects were minimal. My eyes, to me, were of little consequence." 

 _He doesn't look the slightest bit afraid of what's happening to him,_ you think, knowing if your own vision were to alter in such a way, you'd be damn well terrified.  _He's so focused._ Another of the monsters approach with two others from his other side, chattering with a swiftly clacking beak.  

"In order to break through the barrier, my team devised a method of attempting to draw it's magic out, to empty it until it was no more," he says. "We used the Core, making a connection between the two directly. We were sure it would work, what with the Core's capabilities, but such an action proved to be the wrong one." 

The catwalk spontaneously quakes, causing the monsters, and yourself, to reach out for balance in a flurry of dropped paper. Gripping onto the warm metal with both hands, you attempt to steady yourself, and turn your chin swiftly around, trying to gauge where exactly that had come from. 

The sun-containing Core rumbles ominously, a positively hair raising thing to both see and hear from so close, and the scientists look no less worried by it's exclamation. Gauging the stability of the railing for a moment, the once-Gaster speaks quickly to his associates, and one nods, breaking off from the rest to run along the path 

until they're halted, sent falling to the floor when the quake returns with avenge, and fails to fade. A blaring noise, an alarm you think, starts to wail from somewhere inside the machine, and the monsters are speaking in quick, frightened voices. 

Meanwhile, unaffected as ever, your Gaster remains on both feet hardly ruffled.  

"The Core could not take the strain. Perhaps it was the inferior materials it was created from, perhaps it was the magic itself made by human mages so much greater in power than our own at that point, or maybe it had something to do with what was lost on the Core when it's creator, Mort, died... It may have been all of those above combined, or none of them at all," he shakes his head, dismissing it entirely. What's done was done, but you're more bemused by the fact that he's so utterly blasé when the world seems to be going to hell.  

Hell is certainly one way to put it, as the inner fire of the Core grows greater, and greater  until you can't see the walkway when it drops out from beneath your feet. 

 

Vertigo swamps your head, blurring your vision, and causing an ache to start up beneath the temples of your skull when you reach up to hold it between your hands. It's there and gone as quickly as it came, but you have to center yourself, pressing your shoes into the firmness of the floor beneath your feet and blinking uncertainly against the dim lightning of this new room. 

"I'm sorry," Gaster says to you as he approaches, weak amusement skimming across his face. "I get ahead of myself sometimes." 

"Where are we," you ask, dropping your hands and peering around. This room reminds you much of G's when he was a child, but it's oddly unkempt. The furniture consists of a desk pushed against a wall with it's own monitor and computer tower, more than one bookcase, and an armchair sitting next to a flickering hearth. The décor consists of books that simply litter the place, in tall towers that sit in every corner of the room, and beside every piece of furniture. Sheafs of paper stick out from more than one page haphazardly, and the  _clothing_. It's as though someone's dresser exploded, it's so bad! 

"Well, I," Gaster tries, and you're amazed to find that he actually looks embarrassed. "I was never very good with cleanliness. Too much to do, you see," he says lamely, shrugging with both hands held up. All you can do is stare. How on earth does someone who look so immaculate otherwise come home to this?  

Speaking of, the two of you aren't alone. There's also a bed in the room, and you would think it would be the most put together part of the place if it weren't for the person sitting beneath it's blankets. 

"Gaster..." your eyes widen, you glance at him in faint horror, and then back to his former self. 

The incident at the Core has marked him permanently forever.  

There's a large bandage on one side of his skull, covering the entirety of his right eye and the top of his head. Under his left eye is what looks to be a butterfly bandage, keeping a line of black held closed. He looks seriously tired, but there are notes scattered all over his bed, and, sitting amongst them, is his son. 

 "The Core was nearly destroyed, but fortunately we stopped the process in time. There were no casualties, save for our original plan. But I was able to come up with a different solution."

"To pull it apart," you finish out loud, recalling what G had told you previously of Gaster's plans.  _But that didn't work._  

"It did not," he replies to your unspoken statement, no shame or resentment to be found there as far as you can tell. If there's any to be found, he's guarding it well, and you wonder if this has anything to do with his current straight backed stance. "But it led me deeper into the magic of the All, a magic that my son had some considerable skill in himself." 

Gaster frowns.  

"It frightened me." 

Sans gestures with a handful of data at his father, his serious expression clashing with his attire: a T-shirt with a drooping collar and striped sleeping shorts.  _"-if I were to avoid exposure for long periods of time-."_  

" _No, I will not allow it_ ," the former Gaster states firmly. Although he doesn't need to raise his voice, his message is made clear: there would be no arguments. " _Attend to your friendships, Sans, and to your studies. But keep your work with my experiment at a minimal._ "  

Sans seems to flinch, his chin lowering, but so does Gaster's voice, a sigh in his words as he speaks. " _Our experiment. It is as much yours as it is a remainder of the team's."_ Sans perks up at this, his smile already spreading as he begins to form a new argument.  _"It has already had a perhaps everlasting_ _effect_ _on my person, Sans. I would not have it done to you. The less dangerous aspects of this_ _endeavor_ _, yes, you may remain privy to. But for now, concern yourself with your youth."_  

Sans' smile disappears, but he eventually nods, giving into his father's strict orders.  

" _You will perhaps thank me someday,_ " his father states, sitting his notes on his covered lap to reach his left hand over in order to brush the top of his son's skull. Sans' eyes squint comically, but his grin strengthens once more. " _I was not so fortunate as to have a proper childhood of my own_." 

A knock sounds at the door to the room, ending Gaster's gentle ministations as someone leans inside.  _"The Royal_ _Physician_ _is here to see you now,"_ the pink furred, long eared monster announces, and Sans immediately perks up from his spot on his father's bed. 

 _"Does that mean-?"_  

 _"Yes,"_ the monster laughs, and Sans has already jumped from the bed. " _They're at_ _-oh, my._ " The monster's eyes go wide when Sans disappears, their ears twitching before they turn their head and disappear back outside the door.  

Gaster is chuckiling by the time they reappear, looking delighted, but still amazed by what had just occurred. "He's gotten so much better!" 

" _He can only move short distances, and his mood tends to cause his power to become_ _erra_ _tic_ _,_ _but yes, he has grown remarkably_ ," Gaster consends, the pride obvious on his voice. 

After their short exchange, the other monster dunks out of the room, and Gaster is temporarily left to himself.  

"I grew more so distant from my son, on that evening," your Gaster says, filling the silence, and you watch as the other grows increasingly distracted by what's laid out before him. "That was the last time we sat down together properly....and for the very reason, I failed to notice the worst approaching until it was too late." 

You try to catch Gaster's eyes when he says this, so hollow is it how he speaks that it places you on edge, worry twisting in your gut. You nearly ask pointlessly aloud what's wrong, what's will be wrong or was, actually, but when the room changes it causes your attention to stray long enough that you don't get the chance.  

The same house, and yet another, different room.  

A sitting room or a study, perhaps? It's rather large, and well decorated. There's a modest table with two chairs, yet another fireplace, and several more bookshelves packed with content. There's even another desk, like in Gaster's bedroom, and the former Gaster sits behind it, his head planted on an upraised fist supported by it's surface. 

His eyes are shut, and you think he may be sleeping, but there is not sign of the bandages in sight. If a skull's wounds could look raw and still healing, his would. The cracks in his skull are slightly jagged, thick things, yet to smooth with much needed time and patience. He's wearing glasses you've never seen, and his skull has grown less defined, his face, but he still has a strong chin, and smooth, sloping forehead, mared with the magic he became so enthralled with.  

You wonder how much sleep he has missed that it would lead him to falling unconscious over his work, but your Gaster makes no comment. He stands there, nearly motionless, his back towards you. As the other Gaster remains unchanging, you start to fidget, and think to reach towards your own Gaster in question-. 

When the other Gaster jolts, so do you, his glasses clattering off their already precarious perch on the bare remainder of the arch of his nose. He stands up, his wooden chair scraping noisily across the floor, and moves around the desk. 

 _"Sans-."_  

The door to the room shudders loudly, something on the other side banging against the door like a ram ready to tear it down. Gaster moves between you and his present self immediately, taking the additional few steps to the door and throwing it wide-. 

You've seen this person, you just know it. It's odd seeing them since the beginning of the story, but without their helmet, you notice how strikingly similar to Undyne that they appear. The same blue scales, the same strong musculature, the very same striking, yellow eyes—two of them, not just the one. Only their hair is different, long and tumbling, but only on one side of their head, straight down the middle, the other left bare. It much resembles a bold scarlet fin, left to fall to one side.  

But the awe defining intimidating power that Undyne exudes is entirely lacking in this person, as they have fallen to one knee in front of Gaster's door, with one hand keeping them steady on it's frame, and the other keeping something tucked close to their side.  

 _"_ _Wing Dings_ _-!_ _"_  

 _"Naiade-?"_  Gaster stops speaking upon seeing what,  _who_ , they are carrying. " _What is wrong with my son-?"_  

 _Sans!_ Panic replaces worry when it is indeed revealed to be him, small and limp, held under the Royal Captain's arm like a sack of flour rather than a child. His hands dangle towards the ground, and his skull is slumped, you can't see his face from where you stand, but your Gaster, much to your surprise, stops you with a hand from moving any closer. 

You look to him, beseeching, but he is impassive, closed off to your persistent inquiries.  

" _I'm sorry_ ," the fish like monster gulps, the instability of her speech making you feel not in the least bit  reassured. " _It's my fault_. _I told them to stay back, I told them-_ _,"_ their spare hand moves from the door, to their sharp toothed mouth, the yellow spheres of their gaze breaking.  _"Stars, h_ _e'll never survive this."_  

 _"N-Naiade,"_ Gaster interrupts, reaching for his son, and the person thankfully relinquishes their small burden, Gaster turning him over in his arms, face up, eyes closed, mouth a soft frown. Gaster examines his front swiftly, and looks to his acquaintance once more for answers: " _N-_." 

" _I'm sorry_ ," is all they have to give. 

And then they're gone, the doorway left empty, another slamming shut not long after.  

Gaster remains there for only a moment, and then acts, leaving the room in their stead. The focus shifts, his bedroom appears around you, and Gaster enters, moving over to his bed to lay his son down upon it's mattress.  

 _"Sans,"_  he speaks to his son, placing one hand on the side of his smaller skull, and the other on his shoulder _. "Sans, wake up,"_  he urges him, quiet at first _, "Sans,"_ louder this time, trying to find something, any sign of what's wrong. But nothing stands out save for the skeleton child's stillness, and you don't like it. G or no, human or not, seeing a kid remain so motionless like this-. " _Sans,_ _please_!" 

His eyes open, eye lights brighten, the moment stills, holds it's breath. 

" _Sa_ -." 

Sans _screams_.  

His eyes _blur_ with madness, mouth gaping, and revealing the tips of two ever so slightly pointed canines, and all he can do is  _scream._  It sends a shock of absolute horror through your system, and you want to move, to help, but you're frozen in place, unable to  _think_ properly _,_ much less _rea_ _ct._  

 _"Sans,"_ his father pleas, utterly helpless as his son goes on, and on. His eyes dance in his skull, trying to  _see_  what's happening, to understand, and... it clicks.  

Revelation is clear, the stiffness of his body betraying his sudden realization of what has occurred that's hurt his son, and without further thought, he presses his small body to his chest, sitting down on the bed, bending over him, letting Sans scream into the folds of his coat without any attempt to stop him as he rocks his child softly.  

 _"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."_  

"What had occurred could not be healed with magic," your Gaster is narrating, but you're bewitched by the scene, uncaring of the moisture that has found it's way into your eyes and along the roundness of your cheeks as all you can do is watch what has long since passed. "His Soul was cracked, damaged by the loss of someone most dear and precious to him," he says, only then drawing your trembling attention, questions springing up in your mind like wildfire.  _Who? Who was it? Why Sans, why when he was so, so tiny-?_  "I was too enthralled by my own work to take proper notice. It was always "Later, later. When this is done. I thought I had time. "  

Sans screaming breaks and shapes into a word, a single repetition of: " _No, no, no, no-."_ Gaster continues rocking him, saying nothing, only providing comfort while Sans hands tighten into fists against his father's coat until his finger bones crack from the strain.  

"I did not."  

 

"He would not eat." 

The house again. A sitting room with a round rug, a tall ceiling, a loveseat that appears rarely used, yet more shelves, and a single, high backed armchair. Sans sits atop it's cushion, still, his eye sockets pitch black. You would think him to be a doll, a lifeless replica of him as a child, if your instincts did not demand that you try to approach him and somehow make things right.  

"He would not rest, until he fell involuntarily unconscious. He would not speak when spoken to or otherwise," Gaster lists off, his eyes just as empty, locked on a point in the air, and you fall to your knees in front of his son, whispering his name pointlessly.  

Your voice stops when you think you see it, just barely, around the bottom rim of his eye sockets:  _dust_.  

"No," you utter breathlessly, your heart and Soul breaking in your chest. You attempt to reach forward, to hold him in your arms, and there's actual, physical contact. But Sans is incapable of noticing it.  _This is a memory_ , you need to tell yourself.  _It's over, it's done._  But you don't because you wouldn't care anyways.  _This isn't right_ , is what you allow, _this shouldn't be happening to a child,_ is what you know with absolute certainty.  

"There was only one thing I could think of to save him," Gaster says from across the room, but you fail to turn your head when a door opens, and closes. "I had been thinking on it for awhile. Call it greed, but if it would work, and fill that hole left behind..." 

" _Sans_." 

You feel his presence in the air behind you as he approaches. Peering over your shoulder, you see him there, holding something in his arms. Something wrapped in orange and cradled in his crossed arms like precious glass. There's a catch in your lungs, and after initial freeze up your quick to get up, and move out of the way, as unnecessary as it was.  

That Gaster takes your place with unhindered grace, falling to a crouch before his oldest son and wearing a good natured mask, as if all was already well, but there's a tenseness to the way he holds himself. He's afraid, but as tentative as his motions are, he has to try. 

 _"Sans, I want you to meet someone,"_ he speaks to the unmoving figure in the chair, nothing given away that he's registered his father being in the room. You step back once, twice, creating distance, but your eyes are on Sans. 

 _"This is his first day in the whole world,"_ Gaster goes on,and there's this  _barest_  utterance from his arms. It's small, and it's quiet, and with it Sans shifts ever so faintly.  _"I wanted him to share it with you."_  

Papyrus eyes are shaped perfectly like ovals. He has an overbite he'll grow out of, and there are little lines that separate each of his individual teeth. From within his orange, blanketed wrap  it's mostly his head that's revealed, a small, white skull with blushes of equally orange smudges on his cherry shaped cheekbones. But his hands are also free, and they're finger bones are clutched into little fists. He looks up at Gaster with the same open curiosity that Sans showed when he was born, but then his eyes blink and adjust, centering on his brother.  

Sans stirs. There's a flicker of light, faint, but  _there_  hovering in his eye sockets, and when Papyrus' mouth parts, when his hands open, close, clutching at the air, and Papyrus mummers in absolute delight, those lights are  _beacons_ inthe darkness of his head.  

Papyrus' hands flutter, Sans' capturing every movement, and you can see Gaster's hopes becoming tangiable and real. " _Do you want to hold him_?" 

Sans answer is to glance at his father and then back down at his baby brother, his arms lifting from his sides uncertainty. Gaster reaches forward and fills them with the bundle, tapping under Sans' left arm until Papyrus' head is a bit more elevated, and adjusting the folds of his blanket until he's a little more secure.  

Meanwhile Sans hasn't taken his eyes off of Papyrus, and the baby bones hasn't taken his off his older brother. 

 _"He looks like a bean."_  

Gaster laughs sharply in shock, but nods faintly, and then stronger still a second later. " _I suppose he does_ ," he replies wetly, and his eyes fall to his youngest son, but he doesn't make a move to touch him himself, content to watch them together. " _His name is Papyrus_." 

" _Papyrus?"_  

Papyrus wiggles his arms and coos, and you aren't imagining it with thick drops of blue erupt in Sans' eyes, caught on the rims of their sockets until he presses his face into his brother's small form, bringing him closer to his chest as his shoulders quiver under the fabric of his shirt.  

Gaster finally leans forward, wrapping his arms around his family, a weight dissipating from his back and into the air. 

"Even if Sans had not lost someone dear to him his love for his brother would have been just as absolute," Gaster says, keeping a distance between him and his family. You can't imagine what it's like, to be so close to someone so dear to you, and being unable to say a word. "But Papyrus did what I could not, he brought his brother back from the dark, and from the second Sans heard his voice, their love was eternal." 

The silence lingers, punctured by Sans' faint sobs, but Gaster is turned away, his face hidden from view. 

 

"Papyrus spent his every waking moment with Sans, and Sans with him. But I had my work." 

The narration goes on, and youre presented with the laboratory, now blanketed with light, and filled with life. It's a blur with activity, scientist monsters are every where, moving to and fro, examining data, leaving the room only to be replace with yet another new face. At the center of it all is Gaster. He's one of the tallest in the room, but he's also the one they obviously all defer to, the skeletal monster constantly checking up with one person or another.  

"With the knowledge that my sons were under the care and supervision of my friends, of Gerson, Grillby, and, sometimes, even the king, I did what I must," your Gaster needs not speak over the din, his close proximity you and his control over the memory once again being a valuable asset while being amongst a crowd. His old self is positively beaming up at a new monitor set into one of the walls, a large thing with racing numbers, wavering lines, and who knows what else. It was all gibberish to you, but he seemed happy. "I was one of the first of my kind to delve into the magic of the All. It was a source of unfathomable, untapped potential. For fear of it's effects, and due to my position, I was to be the only one allowed to try and control it's magic directly. When the time would come to use it properly, I would be the one to implement it." 

 

It's dizzying, going from a completely bustling lab to an almost utterly empty one. But the memory now is changing quickly from scene to scene. Something tells you that it's nearly over. 

 Standing in the same place as previous in the lav, are you and Gaster. But his old self exists there still as well. 

His voice exists as a ship in a haze of sound, white noise playing like irritated fuz across your eardrums. It seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, and at it's center is Sans' father. 

" _Entry number seventeen_." 

The Gaster of now and the Gaster of then have become one in the same.  

Yours stands beside you, and save for the black coloring of his coat it's all that sets apart him from his past self. He hovers over his work like a crow appreciating it's nest of baubles, glancing back and forth at his notes in his hands, and the readings on the screen of the computer in front of him without blinking an eye. It's dark in here, the shadows running deep, almost unnaturally so, but he fails to notice entirely. He's too focused on working, speaking into his station as he goes. 

" _Dark, Darker, yet darker. T_ _he_ _darkness keeps growing. The shadows cutting deeper_ ," he says, dropping his notes, peering at the screen, his smile wide and cutting across the whiteness of his skull like a knife wound.  

You can only listen and watch, enraptured by the sight of what can only be a man become obsessed, and gone mad.  

" _Photon readings negative. The next_ _exper_ _iment_ _.... seems very, very interesting_." He peers over his shoulder, eyes melding with the black, his top most frame framed with a halo of white light from the monitor behind him.  

" _What do you two think_?" 

 

"He saw us."  

Gaster says nothing, and you have to get ahold of yourself, and refocus on the present. The lab is gone, the former Gaster is gone. Instead the world has become light, white, and devoid of life. But there's something here that you haven't heard in all the while since the memory began. 

 _Wind._  

The whiteness pulsates, dims, darker, darker, until it has faded from a pristine white to a cobweb gray, then it returns again. This goes on, and on, and you have to turn in place to see where the light flees to each time. 

You stand within a perfectly cut, rectangular tunnel, and from within it you hear the rushing of wind in your ears, and skimming the surface of your skin. It seems to go on, and on forever, the light disappearing into a point far beyond your comprehension.  

But there's something else about it, something you feel like quickness in your veins and an excitement along your Soul. "Where are we," you find yourself asking in a near-whisper as your hand clutches self-consciously at your breast, trying to calm the essence of your being that... _wanted_.  

"The barrier." 

"Wait, the  _barrier_?"  

That's what that feeling must be, turning your heard on it's head and filling your limbs with energy:  _magic._ It was there in the dark with the monsters, but here it's especially thick, and it's as though you've been dunked into a lake of cold water after a long nap. It's  _invigorating_ , but the energy it lends makes you jumpy, on edge, and your already bewildered emotions come back full force. 

"We're at the barrier?" 

"Indeed," Gaster nods, as calm as a cucumber, but although you've barely known him, something is off about it. Maybe it's the connection you have to him, but something is telling you that Gaster is on edge despite how poised he appears on the outside. "Walk on in that direction, and you would do so forever," he nods down the corridor, where the light flees to. "The other, and in merely a moment you would be on the precipice of the king's throne room." 

Maybe it's the intense pressure of the location, perhaps it's the history behind it, but you don't  _like_  being here.  _It's a memory, just a memory._  

"But you saw us," you speak up, eyes darting to Gaster's impassive glance. "He was speaking to us when he said that, "you two"? There was no one else in the room, was there?" 

"Correct." 

Your eyebrows shoot up, then down again, narrowing as you grow confused again. "But how is that possible? I thought that this already all happened, years ago. How could you have seen us?" 

"By that point in time as you have observed with my gradual physical change, I had been exposed to the magic and science of the All on more than one occasion," he explains, and you have to force yourself not to ask about that right away. He already knws what you want to ask, and you know he'll explain if you wait. But to say that you’re a little impatient is an understatement.  

 _It's this place. It makes me feel like I've had an entire pot of co_ _ffee_ _, and then some._  

"During my work, I was often exposed the magic of the All, the In between. It changed me, but lent me some considerable power.  

"In the state that I am in now, I have all knowledge of what once was, and what is, but I'm also still connected to the past as well as the present, both magically, and physically. And, in that way, I am linked to my old self. At that point in time I was not yet one with the All, not yet, but by dipping into the past, I made myself apart of his present," he tilts his chin down to you. "By holding my Soul in your hands, and being connected to myself, you, too, are in somewhat of the same position. When my former self saw my present self, he saw you, as well." 

"That is..." You trail off, trying to find the words. Unbelievable? Impossible? But how could it be with everything else you've witnessed? How could you possibly say such a thing considering who you are speaking to, just how it's being done, and where you stand now? "Astounding." 

It's minute, but Gaster's firm smile gentles at this into some trace of amusement. "Yes, it is."  

Then it strikes you. How long exactly has Gaster been alone? Yes, he's basically been at one with... well, Everything, but how long has it been since he's spoken to anyone outside of his brief time with Papyrus? It's been more than fifteen years. Fifteen years since he's had no one to laugh with, no one to extrapolate problems alongside, not a Soul to connect with on any level outside that of the place of a bystander... 

"We could change things." It comes in an epiphany, it's so utterly obvious now that you know that the former Gaster can see the two of you, that your mind spins with the possibilities, the  _outcomes._  "We can stop this from ever happening," you say, a smile blossoming across your face as you meet his eyes, "You never have to scatter across the universe! Papyrus and G, and  _Sans_ , know not to go through with the experiment! You could meet Frisk and tell them every step they need to take to break the barrier even sooner! All you have to do is _tell_ him!" 

"No, I would rather not." 

You freeze up. Did you hear him correctly? "But... but why not?" 

"As I have told you previously, I am one of the All, I know of what is, and what was, but I cannot know what will be or could," he says simply, but then his voice grows heavier as he tries to put across the importance of what he is saying, and how much be believes it must be so. "If I were to tell him of what occurs, it could change everything. You know of this, do you not? Pursuing through your mind, and your past, I know that you've heard of similar theories." 

"I," you stutter, taken aback, but beginning to feel awkward as you glance away from him. "Y-yes. Going back in the past and accidentally, well, killing someone could remove yourself from existence. Or, or maybe leaving behind something you shouldn’t, or changing an important point in a timeline and basically ruining everything." 

"Precisely," he nods. "Suppose I tell my old self about what is to occur, and, yes, I never scatter. Sans and Papyrus grow up with a father, and Frisk falls to the Underground... with a direct link to the endgame. A short cut, if you will. Then they may have never spent time with monsters as they did, fostering a hope in the strongest of my kind that the world above would not be so cruel, would even be as merciful as a child. They never would have learned as they did," he says, hinting at a history of the Underground, of Frisk's time spent there, that you still have much to learn about. "Perhaps Frisk never  falls at all or comes late because something about my not shattering changes what should occur and, despondent, we attempt to remove the barrier ourselves once more. I am again consumed by the magic of the All, or perhaps it is Sans, or Papyrus. I lose one of them or both, instead.

"Time is fickle, some would say. Others, that it is stubborn, reasserting itself no matter how you try to change events," he shrugs briefly. "All of what has occurred, may still do so. Whatever the case, I would rather the timeline remain affixed to what we know, and what we know is the barrier falls. The monsters are freed, and Papyrus wakes to see the stars for the very first time in his life..." The implication takes your breath away, as it does Gaster's, the monster peering off to the farthest reaches of the barrier.  

 _Papyrus has seen the stars._  

Gaster blinks and brings himself back to the present, the past, technically, and peers down at you once more: "I am content with what is." 

You hum under your breath, brought back to earth by this knowledge despite the continuous stream of energy still existing around you. You can't wait until you wake again. 

It isn’t an infuriating stubbornness that brings the question to mind, but you have to ask it when it comes to you. "If... if he saw us,  _you_ , with a human. What did you think of that? Did it change things?" 

He shakes his head, perking up more so, "No, it actually cemented my decision further," he says, then continues when he sees the question strengthening in your mind. "Seeing myself with a human, _you_ , it gave me hope," he admits, and the lingering traces of his dulled mood are further chased away. "Hope that we would rejoin human society, but that I would also work with, speak to, a human for the first time in decades!" You can't help but grin in return at his wide gesturing, and his fingers fist in triumph. "I had little contact with humans growing up, save for...." He shakes his head, dislodging a thought, and you have to wonder who he recalled so briefly without comment. "I was intrigued, and more so impatient than ever. If I was willing to stand alongside a human in rapt conversation, surely that only meant well for my sons," he finishes, his hands falling back to his sides.  

The moment is gone. Like a popped bubble, his previously heightened mood dimming down to nothing. You can sense it in the air, all around you, and your connection with him letting you know right away that the memory is about to take a turn.  

White lab coat and all, his former self comes forth from the other end of the barrier, from the way of the throne room. You step aside as he approaches, his eyes skimming you in sparks of elated joy, and when he passes, you can't help but notice the dissonance in your Gaster's eye sockets.  

But there are others there also, on the fringes of the barriers entrance. Other monsters in their business attire, betraying their positions as employees to Gaster. You recognize one of them, the gray furred monster from the Core incident, but now his eyes are shut tight. There's considerable scarring gouged into his skin.  

Near him is a wide eyed child, not much bigger then a child, with a perfectly round head and a malnourished, human-like body. There is a scaled monster with a body much like a snake, their eyes slitted, and mouth fanged. Lastly is someone that brings to mind Frisk's friend, MK. Armless, with a horned fringe and a long, spiked tail, they could be MK only a few years out of adolescence.  

"The closest of my team," Gaster mummers to you as an aside in answer. "The others are in the throne room with the king, waiting for the results." 

" _At last_ ," the former Gaster speaks, commanding your interests to him once again. Raising his white robed arms slightly,  palms spread wide, he announces: " _Now is the time_." 

It comes in a shock of color, an absence of color, or the combination of all. It is black, and it is thick, spreading out from underneath Gaster's feet and along the walls of the barrier. You take a few steps back instinctively when it approaches you but there's no escaping it's overwhelming speed, it's hunger to devour. It fills up the white space in the span of mere seconds, Gaster's visage, both him of the past and the future, stand out like beacons against it.  

 _"I will spread it apart, molecule by molecule."_  

 Something snaps, gravity descends, and your pushed to your knees with a ferocity that expels the air from your lungs in what quick burst. 

 _What, what is this?_  

You can hardly think, it's so intense, causing your every bone to shudder at the effort of keeping yourself from pressing into the ground. You blink wildly, looking for your host, and you're outright terrified when you see that Gaster is in the same state that you are. _Both_  of them are. 

" _N-no, no, wait_ ," his old voice comes. You assert your gaze on him, mouth wide, gasping. He's managed to hold his chin up by a few inches, and you see that his eyes are blown wide, both of them perfectly oval in shape and spilling with black ink. _"It's too much, I can't....I cannot. Oh,"_ he sobs, the quaking of his frame grows significantly, and the ink you think strangely makes it look as though he's crying. 

 _"I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."_  

 _My sons._ It goes unsaid, but you hear it in your Soul, with every fiber of your being.  _I failed you. I failed you all._  

The blackness builds, a tidal wave that smothers the scientist whole, and rushes towards you like a tidal wave until it finally overcomes you entirely.  

You're sinking.  

Down, down. 

 _This, this is..._   _(Not again)_

_I can't breathe_

_Please_ _help_ _(Please, not again)_

 _I'm sorry_  

 _P_ _lease_

_Ple...ase_

 

"I'm sorry." 

Gaster looks down at you, a tall shape against an infinite everything of white. 

"I'm sorry that I had to remind you of that." 

You open your mouth, choke on an inhalation of breath, and it breaks into a sob of your very own. You're crying, and you don't know why. 

"G-Gaster." 

He kneels down, braces on hand on the "floor", and uses the other to sit you up, until you're half leaning into him for support. You're having a hard time catching your breath when your need to breathe here at all is still a matter of question. "Wha-what was, tha-that?"  

"It was too much, the magic," he responds, tired, his eye sockets almost appearing worn with how close he is to you now. "The magic of the All, for my mortal shell, it was much too great. Combined with the power I used for the Core in an attempt to amplify it's power, it overtook me. My physical self was inhaled by the Core, my being scattered to the universe, and my Soul left in dissonance." 

 _It was overwhelming. That must have been what I felt, as if I were literally drowning from the inside out_ , you think but... something about your idea seems wrong to you.  _It wasn't my memory, maybe that's why that doesn't feel right?_  You feel like you're lying to yourself, and you don't know why. 

"And... that is the end of my tale." 

 _No._ You manage to sit up on your own and Gaster gives you an inch more of space, his hand falling away from your back. You don’t have time to think of your own problems. You have the now, and right now, you have Gaster.  

You have him, and now his memories. His memories of the Underground, of being sealed away and giving life to his sons, the birth of his ambition to see them free, and the final thoughts of a man consumed by the fear that he would never see his sons again.

Sniffing, you push away the wetness from your eyes, _No, it's not._  

 _"_ Humans.., _"_ he huffs tenderly with a laugh. "Always so stubborn." 

"To not let things go unsaid, to take what time we can from those we love," you swallow thickly, feeling closer to this person now compared to so many others that have entered and left your life. "That is the lesson you wanted me to learn."

He tilts his chin down in affirmation, "Just so." 

You give a laugh of your own, a pathetic thing, but with everything you've seen, and everything you now know, it's hard for you to muster very much energy at all, "That was a, an incredible way to learn it. Tha-thank you. For showing me, I mean. "

"I admit...I may have simply been over eager for the additional attention." This time when you laugh it's much stronger, but maybe that's the exhaustion sinking in. Is it truly possible for you to be tired while technically asleep? 

"How long has it been?" 

"Three days. You'll be waking soon." 

You breathe out in a rush, _Three days?_   Then sigh, running a hand through your hair.  _BP is going to kill me_. "There's magic in threes," you comment idly, feeling your eyelids having become cast in a rough tinge you make no effort to rub away. Crying does that. "I heard that once."  

"Threes. My sons, and yourself, perhaps," he says, earning an eyeful from you. "You'll make a remarkable friendship."  

"Or you, and your sons," you insist, lowering your volume with some reluctance afterwards. "You'll see them again, you have to." 

His amusement slips away from the atmosphere, although his mouth remains fixed in the same expression. "I do not think I deserve to."

"Why," you ask, and then stop, "Because you weren't there. You worked, constantly, and in the end-."

"I destroyed myself completely."

"B-but you didn't!" Gaster's stare bores into your own, but he makes no attempt to interrupt. "You, you did that work to help them. To free them from the Underground," you say, hitting the white "floor" with one hand in some attempt to put your point across. "You wanted a family, you were lonely, and everyone but the most cruel of individuals has every right to want to have someone to love! And you were there! You taught Sans about everything he knows and loves today! When Sans' Soul was hurting, you were there to try and save him! You may not have given them the stars, but you, you gave them the drive to try, and most importantly, you gave them each other!" 

You pause, your heart palpitating in your chest, and your Soul bursting with aggravation. "And that, I think is the best thing you've ever done. I can't," you shrug, "I can't imagine what the others would be without them. And, and G, and Papyrus. They deserve a father.

"If, if you're so upset about what you didn't do, then you should do your best to make up for it. Not," you trail off, the energy draining from your bones when your thoughts trail elsewhere. To some time, to someone. Your own father. Your mother. Your brother. All, long gone. But Gaster, he is still _very_ real. "Not everyone is given a second chance at that."

"As you say," he smiles when your eyes nearly narrow into a glare. You're tired, yes, and you're definitely in a stubborn mood, but he's one to talk. "I believe you, Sirius Jones." 

Your eyes soften, shoulders falling ever so much. The way he stares at you, it makes you feel unworthy of such sincerity, and it's difficult not to look away. 

"I still have hope."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies about skimming over any baby-bones content, but that will be feat. in a later chapter. It will detail Sans' trauma, and feature both his perspective, and that of the one "dear to him" that he lost. Almost all of the gaps will finally be filled, and I'm am very much looking forward to sharing their story.  
> Good morning, afternoon, and night everyone! It is time for me to do the sleep.


	20. Of Want and Wistfulness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chap. inspo: "Hercules" by Fly Away Hero (for paps)

Awareness comes in waves. The contentment of the Soul in your chest, the softness beneath your body, the scent of something comforting, the light of a surrounding world through barely parted eyelids, an unfamiliar ceiling and a window above the bed in your peripherals.

There's a weight at your side, your hand is tangled up in something warm, white, and soft, AD's stomach rising, falling, rising again in a slow, even pattern. 

A turn of your head and you see a floor cluttered in clothing, paper strewn on a desk, and the area around it, and G beside you, leaning back in a chair with his tired expression lost in thought.

He looks so much like his dad right now, which would be putting it mildly, if it weren't for the fact that a part of him is his dad. The scars on his skull mimic his father's own crumbling form, and the holes in his palms perfectly rounded from where his father purposely drew from his physical essence. But Sans is still there.  

The shape of his skull is not quite like his father's. He's slim, but not willowy, and he's gotten so tall. The last time you saw him he was so little but he could hold all of his brother in his arms so easily. There's more of him still there beneath the surface: the jokes, his love for his brother, that need to be self-scathing but to play it off as light hearted humor, and so many memories built up after the loss of his father.

Something stings in your eyes when you think about it, Sans before Gaster was torn from his life. Sans small, eager, bursting with energy. Was that what he was like before he nearly lost his brother, too? Scarless, wanting to know more and more...

You want to stand up, to move out of bed, smooth the lines out from underneath his eyes, and tell him what he's needed to believe for years, "It's not your fault. It was never your fault."

Your hand twitches against the bed sheet, waiting for you to reach out, "G?"

Your voice is strangely clear despite its misuse, so you understand when he startles, the chair falling on all four of its legs with a clatter, and his elbow knocking over a glass on the bedside table. "s-siri?" His eye flies to you, giving ample opportunity for his scrambling to right the cup to instead nearly knock over the water pitcher next to it. "you're awake! i-i should-."

A stuttering G, now that would be a marvelous sight if you weren't feeling so lethargic. "Is this your room," you ask him, glancing around again, and making no comment on his odd behavior.

AD has woken up, his tongue lolling out between black lips serenely, and something so calming as a yawning dog grounds you further in the moment.

"i uh," he appears apologetic as well as awkward still keeping the dishes in place. "It was the nearest place after you collapsed-."

"Not a hospital?" The space between your eyes furrows at this, but you're not angry, only confused. Not that you aren't truly grateful, but it's a good question.

"uh, yeah," he starts, glancing away, as if he's having a hard time meeting your eyes. "what happened to you, it's magically induced, not something a human doctor could deal with. alph didn't want you moved-."

He cuts himself off when you remove your hand from AD to begin to try sitting up, G's hands dropping what they're holding and going to help, but stopping just before either touch you, one hovering behind your back and the other near your chest. "take it slow."

"How long has it been," you ask, propping your back up against the headboard of his bed as he moves out of the way once it's clear you'll be okay.

"three days," he says, giving you space while his yellow disc doesn't stray again for a moment.

His answer causes you to chuckle. You feel better then you should you think, but maybe that was a result of Alphy's magic, or someone else's. "He was right."

G's brow bone raises, but he doesn't appear confused. "you actually spoke with him than?"

"Yeah," you reply with a frown. "How did you know?"

Rather than answer out loud right away, he nods down in your direction, and you understand after a beat of hesitation.

This whole time you've been propping yourself up with one arm, because your other hand is holding something darker then nightly, shining occasionally like light catching across the surface of unpolished obsidian. It fits snugly in your grip, kept close to your chest, and you're dimly reminded of how it's soft fluttering echoes that of a slow moving heartbeat. Loosening your hold an inch, it hovers there between your palm and chest, AD picking up his nose to sniff curiously at the extraordinary object. A breath escapes your lips at the sight this piece of Gaster's Soul, and you almost think it shudders in response.  

This is Gaster, the monster you were speaking with moments? hours? days? ago. This...fragment of him is proof that he's alive out there, everywhere at once, but no one knows that he still has a Your heart ricochets in your chest, and you look back up at G immediately, your grip tightening back around the fragment. "Papyrus?"

G's countenance at once shifts to something incredibly vulnerable, his eye sockets wide, shoulders slumping, hands loose at his sides--horror creeps up slowly within you until, just then, G smiles.

Your hand flies to your mouth, failing to capture the disbelief in your voice when you speak: "He's awake?"

One of his own go up, his finger brushing his temple, stars he's still processing it but his smile is gorgeous: "yeah."

The sound that escapes you is half laugh and half a sob, and no matter what's happened between the two of you recently, that doesn't hinder the complete and utter relief you both feel in that moment.

Gaster had told you he had woken. But it's like hearing a favorite song, hearing it again just makes it sound all the more beautiful.

You can't imagine the effect on you it will have if you actually see his brother in person.

Oh stars, in person.

Would G even want you to meet him? What with your last encounter things between you must hardly be amicable. Although the situation now is hardly strained.

There was just something about spending so much time with his dad and seeing...G as a kid that has sapped the anxiousness you’ve been feeling around him right out of your bones. Admittedly, the uh, argument the two of you had in the park probably contributed to it as well, the anger you felt in that moment when he wouldn’t explain himself skewing the rose colored glasses you had been wearing since meeting him. And, frankly, even with being down and out, you hardly feel like you’ve actually slept at all.

Your eyes are rimmed with heaviness, your movements sluggish, and your muscles are aching to move, to stretch, to settle back into place for a long nap. But there’s no way that you can go back to sleep now.

The thought of being kept from Papyrus causes dread to pang in your chest, an emotion you're not entirely sure is from your own person, or from the swirling magical presence in your hand.

G must notice your sudden anxiety, the monster glancing at you curiously before you can manage to speak, your voice unsteady for the first time since waking: "Do...do you think he would like me?"

His grin peaks anew, the softening around his eye sockets something you've missed, and your Soul swells with hope. Shrugging softly, as if his answer could be any different, he replies: "he already loves you, siri."

 

 

Sunlight is warm.

Warm not like the lava pits of Hotland. It’s a soft kind of warm, like picking up a plate of food with bare hands, the food on top there long enough to heat the plastic to perfection. It’s like the warmth of someone's arms wrapped around you and holding you tight, arms full of love, and kindness, and joy just to be near you!

“HA, that’s one way of putting it,” his best friend laughs, standing beside him as he takes the whole world in. “Course _you’d_ find the squishiest way of putting it.”

“But don’t you see, Undyne, it’s more than I could have ever imagined,” he sweeps his arms around briefly, bringing them back in as his magic begins to tug on them like it and his body are connected by strings. He thinks he sees a tightness around her eye for an instant, but makes no comment. “The trees! The snow! The people! Doesn’t it just make you want to leap for joy!” He hums to himself, frowning slightly as he taps his chin, “Now...if only I could do the leaping. Or running. Or standing really…”

Since waking up Papyrus had been met with a lot of surprises. Being on the Surface was certainly a big one, and that’s not only due to the sky’s sheer vastness, which gave him a bone aching feeling on top of his other aches that made it feel as though he might float away at any moment…

But his dad had explained everything about what happened, and Doctor Alphys had filled in the gaps from there.

Frisk had broken the barrier with his friends! They’re in the human world now! He has a dad! The sky is humongous and endless and the world is so much bigger than he could have ever imagined! How could anyone not wake up everyday and be excited about that?

“Naw, I know what you mean, Paps,” Undyne pats him on the back above his chair, not as hard as she used to, and she knows that he knows that she’s holding back, but he doesn't admonish her for it. Undyne had always taught him before that it’s important to keep up your strength, but healing takes time, and shouldn’t ever be rushed in case wounds don’t set properly!

Besides, looking up at her as she watches the surroundings, she needs as much time as he does.

The first moment Undyne had seen him after he had woken up had been a very odd one. He’d been exhausted, the strings pulling tight on his bare phalanges as he had waved at her from his bed. A tremble had set into his arm with the attempt, as if he was a baby bones only then learning to move on his own in the world.

Undyne had stopped in the door, one hand on the knob and the other on the frame, frozen in time until concerned welled up in his chest, “HELL-- _hello_ , best friend! You’re looking ra, rather star struck by my remarkable visage! Not that I blame you, nyeh, nye-,” His laughter caught in his throat with a muddled cough of magic and Undyne crossed the space between them in an instant, his arms circling his reclined torso and bringing him into a crushing hug. He remembered seeing Doctor Alphys squeaking in protest next to the machine beside his bed, before his vision was covered in a wave of red hair and blue scales.

No one had held him like that since waking up, his brother and the Doctor stepping around him as if he were glass, and it hurt, but it was a good hurt. One that filled his eye sockets to the brim with tears, and he held her back as much as he could manage, his nostrils filled with the scents of an ocean he had never seen.

He’s been awake for three days now, and this one reminds him a little bit of Snowdin, but even with a white blanket of snow on the ground, the sunlight above warms his bones all the way through. Papyrus has his very own coat paired with his hand made scarf, and Undyne kindly tucked a blanket over his legs before they left that early morning, his friend propelling his chair through the wind, their voices caught on the breeze, nothing but the occasional road light--Undyne called them, he has a lot to learn about the Surface!-- to cause them to hesitate on the way to their destination.

It was a besties day, just him and her, relaxing together. Normally such an occasion would give cause for rigorous training! Spurts of running, climbing, training to be the best that they could be! Followed up by a thorough examination of Doctor Alphy’s library of historical human movies, and a cooking lesson of the finest caliber!

But Doctor Alphys had told Papyrus to take it easy, that his magic was still settling after keeping him stable during his previously comatose state, and he tired very easily. Hence the wheelchair. At first it worried him, nay, baffled him, but the Papyrus chose to take it as simply being another challenge. Not being able to move his legs wouldn’t stop the Great Papyrus from taking on a whole new world! He has a lot of catching up to do, after all.

A sharp sounds catches his attention, and Papyrus turns his head to peer down at a small creature that has landed on the sidewalk, peering curiously at the toes of his partially uncovered boots. A spark of delight fills his sternum when it jumps closer, and more come to join it, fluttering down from the sky, not even Undyne’s snort enough to scare them away.

An outstretched hand is all one needs to take advantage and find a perch on his phalanges, and he has to restrain himself from laughing. “Undyne, Un _dyneeee_ ,” he hisses gently with his smile of victory brightening with glee, not turning his head when a tell-tale click of a camera goes off.

It starts low in his elbow, a gentle weakening of power, until the perch where the bird starts to stutter, and it turns it’s head, considering, before giving up altogether, and taking flight.

Soft sound of discontent escapes him, but his eyes trail to it’s disappearing form on the wind, and he marvels anew the blueness of the winter sky, that stretches on and on.

It’s companions join it when a trill of a phone catches his attention, and he turns his head to Undyne quick enough to see the remnants of something sad on her face, but it’s gone in a flash, replaced by raised eyebrows when she sees the text she's been sent.

“Looks like a certain someone is finally up and at um!” She beams, and Papyrus matches her expression, tooth for tooth, exclaiming in excitement when she grabs his chair without bothering to pocket her phone, speeding him off where you’re laying in wait.

 

Alphys puts way her phone in her coat, her smile not slipping away with it when she turns her head to see G settling a glass of water in your free hand, not letting go until it’s certain that it won’t drop. He’s being really careful about his treatment of you, attentive and slow, and Alphy’s Soul is bursting at the implications. Even if she’d been just afraid, just as cautious at first, because when this started, neither of them had any idea as to what they should do.

She’d been in the middle of writing a dissertation when G had teleported into her bedroom, a blush caught on her scales and papers flying in the air as he had taken her wrist and taken them to his home without a second thought.

“ _i need you_ ,” G had suddenly said as her vision cleared, the curious darkness receding to reveal one startling scene: you laying in someone’s bed, holding the pulsating remnants of someone’s Soul.

Instinct took over, her need to help her friends shutting down, and mostly, her own fear of failure, and they got to work.

Hollie explained everything, from you touching Papyrus’ exposed Soul, to your sudden collapse with the disappearance of the black magic that had been trying to consume it. Hollie had called G after it happened, and he arrived before she could barely utter a few words.

Papyrus began to stir as he lifted you from the floor, and in your hands blossomed the darkest, most potent form of void magic she had ever seen. Alphys recognized it from their experiments, but it was the remains of a Soul containing it that astounded her the most.

What followed was an agonizing wave of helplessness, both of them to cause more damage than what had possibly already been done. This was all new territory for them. They knew the stories, about humans and Monster’s combining Souls to create something...new, powerful, unrivaled. But that’s not what was happening. You only slept, holding Gaster’s Soul in your hands, breathing softly as if you were napping, and not fighting to sustain another life.

What they _could_ do was attend to Papyrus, who had an extreme case of exhaustion on his magic pathways. But Alphys had seen the conflict in G’s face as he left to attend to his brother, conflict that was buried when she peered briefly into their room, and she saw him on his knees next to his brother’s bed.

She could hear him sobbing from the door, and Papyrus was frowning, confused, and laying immobile.

“ _p-pap, paps, i’m sorry, i’m sorry_.”

“Sans?”

Papyrus didn’t know it was his brother right away. It took a few seconds until it dawned on him. That was the first real change he had noticed since waking up, his brother wearing a different face, a different _name_.

They tried to take it slow, the reveal on everything that had happened, but there was no fighting Papyrus’ explosion of joy about hearing the news: their freedom from the Underground.

Numbers were called, friends showed up as quickly as they could manage the trip, and for the first time in ages, nearly all of them were in the same room together: her, Undyne, Toriel, Frisk, Papyrus, G.

Papyrus saw the sky.

There were only two problems: his own well-being, and yours.

You were asleep when he was introduced to you for the second time, according to G. You, sleeping, quiet, and keeping his dad’s Soul from drifting away.

“ _Hello_ , _friend_ ,” Papyrus whispered from beside G’s bed, as if he might wake you, and Alphys stood back to watch with everyone else, tears in her eyes. “ _I can’t wait to meet you again!_ ”

From there, he explained everything.

Up until a few weeks ago, his last memory had been of the incident in the lab underground. The sudden explosion of unrestrainable void magic overloading his own, and causing him to collapse. But, not that long ago, and yet months after they had left the Underground, someone had begun to speak to him through dreams.

Someone Alphys had forgotten about completely, until, quite abruptly, he was there in her memory. A switch flicked on, and it all came back.

A busy day in the capital. The streets crowded with monsters, monsters laughing, talking, hocking wares, living their lives. Alphys on a school outing, listening to her professor explain the economics of the world they lived in, the maths of their bartering system, and their cut off lecture as cries of hello echoed out further down the street.

Bodies parted, monsters stepping aside respectfully, smiling, some even waving from windows overhead, and Alphys, small, clutching her worksheet, as the Royal Scientist walked along side his king.

They were night and day, the Scientist with his eye sockets grown pitch black, his stance rigid, hands behind his back, and wearing his white coat as he walked with a liquid smooth gait. The king tall, so, so tall, blond hair cascading down his back like the sunlight they’d been told about, and shoulders painted in broad, silk covered strokes.

Alphys had clutched her paper tight, lips parted, breath frozen in her throat, and unprepared when someone next to her jostled into her a bit too roughly for comfort.

She yelped, the sound lost in the crowd, and scrambled to get ahold of herself, losing hold of her work in the process. She tried to catch it, claws flailing, but it escaped her, fluttering away, to her horror, directly to where the Royals had just been stepping.

Everyone’s eyes were turned on them, no one was watching her, and it was her own fear of being scolded for losing her paper that propelled her in it’s direction.

His hand was white, as white as the king’s thick fur, and his fingers slender, jointed, cut marble given life. Alphys turned her eyes up to the Scientist kneeling beside her, unable to move as he lifted her work, preparing to hand it to her, when he stopped to read it’s contents.

Oh no, no _nonono_

He laughed, a deep, echoing sound behind his parted black line of a mouth, and when he looked at her again, he was smiling.

“Brilliant work,” he hummed, not meaning the blank spaces she had left for what she was supposed to be working on, but the scribbled equations along their sides, and the drawings of gaping, sparkling eyes. Alphys wasn’t sure which he meant, until she managed to will herself to take the paper, noticing the perfect, white circle in the middle of his left palm. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

The equations. He meant her equations. _Working with her_ , as if he knew for certain that’s what would happen. As if he believed in her when their meeting had lasted all of a few flickers of her Soul.

Alphys could only gape, and watch as her hero stood up, rejoining his waiting companion.

It never happened.

One day he simply stopped existing.

He disappeared without a trace. People assumed that maybe he Fell, lost to the grief that took so many others. Others joked that he was somewhere within the Core, working tirelessly away forever. But no one ever saw him again, and few people that could have known, Alphys never asked. She was afraid of what she would hear, and to ask something like that of G, after they started to work together? It was too personal.

When she tried to think of him, his face, anything. It was a blur. Surely she should have known, he was someone she had looked up to, wasn't he? 

Eventually, when she created Metatton’s body, she filled in a role that had been left vacant for years. There had been someone, _someone_  before. 

But now thanks to Papyrus, they know everything! Because Gaster _told_ him, about his scattering to the void, about everything. Alphys can’t explain how his experiment with the barrier could be lost, but maybe it was his doing. Maybe he was afraid of someone making the same mistake again.

This new idea in mind, Alphys jumps, letting out a soft “eep!” when her phone goes off, and she scrambles to answer it.

It’s Frisk, they’re on their way! And so is everyone else!

“Guys!” The two of you turn to look at Alphys where she’s standing at the doorway, matching faces of curiosity glancing her way, “T-they’re coming!” She waves her phone, smiling, and is unprepared for when your eyes widen: confusion, followed by panic.

Setting the glass aside, you begin to fuss with your hair with one hand, looking down at the rest of your body, and Alphys watches the curious scene, quickly understanding.

G chuckles gently waving your hand away from your hair, “you look fine.”

You gance away, quiet and obviously hesitant, but your hand drops. “...Yeah?”

“only a little like a corpse.”

“Hey!” Outrage paired with a swipe in his direction, prompting another laugh from him. “works for me.”

Alphys notices you flinch, and the two of you fall quiet, the doctor unable to see the expression on G’s face, but if the subtle slump of his shoulders means anything, Alphys can only sigh.

 

An exaggeration of the sympathetic nervous system, blood pathways expand and fill, and the thin, protective skin they rest beneath flushes red, gracing cheeks with soft color.

Thin filaments of fine strands of protein, tangled up in themselves despite days of lying inert, trace the contours of those blushing cheek bones as they fall just so.

Sunlight from the window plays across shoulders and jaw line, forming patterns over the bedspread that waver when you clutch your hand into their folds, and giving light to a pair of eyes that look up, pupils thinning with an unmeant injury that echoes in his chest distantly. Those eyes are gone again, a tightness hugging them that he wishes he could smooth away with the pads of his thumbs.

You don’t look like a corpse.

And _fuck_ , G is glad for that.

You aren’t capable of knowing the fear he felt when he appeared in his brother’s bedroom, his phone still held up customarily to the thin layer of magic that graces his skull, where his ear would be if he had one. He expected one thing--Papyrus relapsing, everything they’ve tried failing, his brother dying-- and seeing another--you, sprawled out on the floor, white as sheet, unresponsive to his quick whispering of your name sent his already panicked response into a free fall.

“ _siri, siri? siri!”_

 _and the rest was a blur,_ the poets would say, but they would be lying.

G remembers every detail.

The flashing guilt in Hollie’s eyes, the twitching of his brother’s finger bones, the words on your arm laid out for him to see, plain as day, if mocking him from clear inside his Souls.

_Won’t you ever learn?_

Because this is what makes him regret. Not the repetition of endless days, not the boredom, not a sky without stars. But when people he loves are hurt before he could have prevented it.

 _semantics_ , he argues with himself when the others arrive, filling up the room and giving it more life than it’s ever have since he moved into the apartment. Blaming himself helped nothing, it only delayed the good he could be doing, but remembering the bad is the brain’s way of teaching a lesson, and maybe someday something will stick.

He lends space beside the bed for the others to huddle in: Frisk leaping on top to balance on your legs beside AD, the kid bursting with queries they all shared: were you okay? Is that really Gaster’s Soul? And do you know what this means? Do you know how grateful we are?

And they all are, Tori hovering close, doting. Alphys trembling with excitement. Hollie holding her kid, tired but happy. BP's own concern for you keeping him from apparently knocking you back to unconsciousness.

“Again, really?”

You laugh awkwardly, smiling in apology at your roommate. “It was an accident?”

“An _accident,”_ BP snarls, his fur fluffing five times til Friday and he ignores the growl of exasperation AD gives him at his tone. “An accident is stubbing your _toe_ , dropping a _glass_ , forgetting to wash _whites_ separately from _colors_ ,” he argues, looking absurd in the black suit, tie, and slacks he’s wearing, smelling vaguely of pasta in a way that makes G anxious. “Not nearly dying  _five times_ , Jones!”

You glance a way, frowning, “Technically-.”

“FIVE.”

“Yeah, okay,” you give in, but the way you're smiling is enough to let him know that you aren't that upset. You don’t want BP to be angry, but there’s not an ounce of regret that he can feel for what’s happened.

“You must admit, my child, what you did was reckless,” Tori speaks up, and you begin to bite your lip self-consciously. “Whatever propelled you to do such a thing?”

“I..” You fail to meet anyone’s gaze, but no one speaks up right away, G’s own curiosity surging up: would your explanation align with Hollie’s? Was her assumption on how you would react correct? But if it was, that would be one more clear piece of irrefutable evidence towards his theory, his theory about your Soul, about him, about the mark on your arm-

“I couldn’t help myself.”

His teeth grit.

“I had to. When I saw it, when I saw his Soul, and, and Gaster’s, I had to,” you admit vaguely, but it rattles the breath in his bones, and he has to fight to leave the room. To run. To cross the space between the two of you-. “I couldn’t look away, some, something in me,” you stop yourself, clutching the fabric of your shirt, close to the center of your chest, where Gaster’s Soul is held near as you can manage without it touching your chest. “I’m sorry.”

Tori sighs, something tired in her expression. “No, it only confirms what we already know.”

The shadow clears, and you glance curiously between her and everyone else, not understanding.

“Yeah, run that by me again,” BP replies grumpily, tightening his handhold that's he's taken on the bed frame beside your head.

“It’s my fault,” Hollie speaks up, drawing nearer, and you blink, unprepared for her sudden interjection. But the long-eared goes on, “You see, Siri, I had an idea that that’s what would happen if you saw Papyrus’ Soul as it was, and, after everything that's happened, I had to take that risk.”

“What the fuck-,” BP bites off, a quickly whispered mention of his name stopping him from approaching the other monster. Toriel doesn’t even reprimand him for his language use around Frisk, the air in the room is so heavy.

“You see, Sirius,” she addressed you instead of BP, and it’s hard to miss the additional step he takes towards you. “Fuku and I talked, and she saw your Soul. She knew right away what you were capable of when you first met, and the attack that night proved it.”

The stirring in your chest on that night that G could see with his eye, feel with his magic, when you pressed your hands into GD’s fur. Strengthening a power that’s always remained locked away, sleeping, speeding your own recovery naturally but not affecting anyone else’s. Until monsters came to the Surface, magic lain dormant woke, and you picked up a natural skill you weren't even aware you had: passive healing. With a little nudge, a direction to aim for, and with Fuku’s help GD was given a fighting chance.

“Wha-what do you mean?” You're stuttering again, uncertain with yourself, and G wants to chase it away.

 _“It’s like I told you,”_ Frisk speaks up, Toriel translating for her kid and hesitating when she must be as curious about that as he is: what did they mean, when they talked? _“With monsters on the Surface, magic has woken up. You’re like me.”_

“So, it’s true then,” Toriel speaks for herself. “What I summarized. Your presence beside GD helped heal his wounds.”

“I-I have,” you look at Frisk, who smiles encouragingly, and he thinks that out of everyone in the room, the anomaly would understand the most. “I have magic.”

“You always have,” Toriel says softly, and everyone sees the awe on your face clearly when you meet her warm gaze. G feels it, and knows youre still comprehending. But when it catches up to you, you’ll be bursting with energy. It’s a fuse slowly, slowly reaching the bomb it’s going to set off, but you still have questions. Obvious ones.

“So, you, you knew my Soul could help him? Somehow?” Then you ask something he didn't expect at all. "D-does she think I can help because of the person my Soul reminds her of?”

The person...your Soul reminds....her of...? G stills.

_no._

Hollie nods, knowing something he doesn’t want to know, and a yell catches in his throat, his vision darkening around the edges, smothering him.

 _no._ Fear bubbles up inside of him, surging, threatening to fill him and drown him-, and no one notices him in the back of the room, _trying_ to hold it all in.

“Yes, about her friend from the Underground.”

_no, it doesn’t. it has nothing, nothing to do with-!_

“Do you know anything about reincarnation?”

His Soul trembles,   _please_ _don't say their name,_ and he feels your eyes on him, but he _can't_ look at you, he's _afraid_ to look at you-.

A door slams open, someone yells-- _Undyne._

His vision clears so quickly it's dizzying, and he the wryness in his bones comes back in threes. A panic attack, startled out of his system, it's almost funny.

The bedroom door is nearly knocked off its hinges when Undyne bursts into the room, pushing a familiar wheelchair, the sight of Papyrus sitting there causing pain to flicker through his magic.

“FRIEND!” He calls out, the loudest he’s been in days, and he means you. You, whose eyes widen when they snap to Papyrus. You who forgets to breathe. You, saying nothing, until your posture weakens and you start to cry, pain lancing through his chest in twin waves of grief, of longing, of joy.

_“Papyrus.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! Guess who has returned! It me. And I'm really, really sorry for the wait. But a lot has happened since my last update.  
> I moved, lost my computer, cut off communication with some extremely bad people, started working more...things happened. I'll be living with it all for the rest of my life, but, I really missed writing this story.  
> I'll be working on it whenever I can, and although I don't know if I can update a story every week, you'll not have to wait whole months again if I can help it.  
> This chapter was probably kinda meh, but I'm getting back in gear, and I'll do my best!  
> Thank you guys for reading, for being so patient, for being so awesome in general! Like, seriously, wowie, how do you do that? I'm jealous. 
> 
> present, old outline, written v early n the morning, months ago:  
> https://1drv.ms/f/s!AjBIitF7CqWthX6j9PdM94yAx74j


	21. Of Confessions and Confessors

You’re a blubbering mess clinging onto an indifferent AD for dear life.

Go figure, but there’s something about holding the emotions of three sentient creatures in one body that’s positively overwhelming.

Gaster’s Soul piece is pulsating stronger now in your hand, and you’ve come to conclude that’s projecting it’s own emotions on top of your own. You’re not sure if this was because the two of you were connected--are still connected?-- or because of it’s close proximity, but it’s difficult not to notice anymore.

It had begun when Hollie began her explanation, touching on a subject that quickly had you drawing an astonishing conclusion that had already started to make an _uncomfortable amount of sense_ in your head.

_“You remind me of someone I once knew.”_

Fuku is the descendent of a boss monster, she can see Souls. _Reincarnation_.

Your brain went blank, emotions stilling to the same placid state they were at when you first woke up, but it was someone else’s that caused you to give in and draw your eyes across the room to a certain someone standing away from everyone else.

Anxiety, welling like a geyser beneath your skin, ready to burst--until Papyrus quite literally burst into the room himself, and everyone’s attention--Gaster’s, your’s, G’s-- was on him.

“FRIEND!”

You had a split second to take him in--alive, smiling, sitting in a wheelchair?-- and after that you did the only logical thing available to you at that moment.

You started crying.

“ _Papyrus_.”

You’re tired, and confused, and worried, and so, so _happy_ that all you can do with yourself is cry as Papyrus takes over maneuvering his chair and shoots straight over to a stop next to the bed. The close proximity just makes everything all the more real and you can’t find the words to say anything remotely comprehensible but Papyrus doesn’t seem the least bit put off by your current state. He keeps beaming, taller than yourself even when sitting down, and you have to look up to meet his firefly eyes.

“IT’S SO GOOD TO FInally-”, Papyrus is cut off with a cough that racks his frame, and worry quickly takes over, your free hand already reaching for him when he gets a hold of himself, smiling anew with the barest hint of a blush on his cheek bones and sweat on his brow. “To finally meet you! Not that we haven’t before, but who’s to say that friends can’t introduce themselves more than once!”

You’ve only heard him speaking normally now for a few seconds, but that and the memories you’ve been given from G is enough that listening to him speak like anyone else would, that is at a polite indoor sort of way, is very off putting. Yet there’s a rough edge around his words that doesn’t make it an option, and his forced manner of speaking, on top of the chair, is another reminder of how different this meeting is supposed to be.

“I am the Great and Amazing Papyrus,” he says, hooking a bare thumb at his chest, and despite yourself, a grin threatens to show itself on your lips. “And as the great and amazing person that I am, I want to thank you for saving my life!”

That chance of a smile slips away, but you can’t look away from the sparkle in his eye sockets, the sight of it making you stomach sink deeper. Save his life? All you did is reach for his Soul like it was some shiny bauble. Hollie gave you the push, presented you the temptation: you could have very well ruined everything as much as actually somehow, sort of, fixed it.

“P-Paps,” you start, then notice your mistake of being over familiar, when, again, you had sort of bumbled into all of their lives to begin with. “Papyrus, I didn’t-.”

“NONSENSE,” he interrupts with a flourish, raising his arms as if to knock your refusal away, but by some luck his raised voice doesn’t send him into another attack. “You saved me, you’ve saved my father, and you're friends with all of the people I hold most dear in my entire life! You did everything right!”

“Oh,” you mutter, blinking, and feeling rather flustered with yourself. Finally letting go of AD, the dog skips over to Frisk’s side, looking at you with the same, smiling expression. Sniffing lightly, you resist the urge to wipe your nose, but you’re unable to contain the flush of your cheeks: you don’t think you’ll ever get used to praise this genuine, but coming from him, you almost think that it could be true. “Well, I…”

“And don’t get me started on what you did for Doctor Alphys,” he goes on, grabbing the doctor’s shoulders and bringing her closer for emphasis, making the yellow monster exclaim quietly in surprise. “Not to mention Burgerpants-” BP looks almost affronted, and you can hear him in your head almost, _“We know each other?”_

“And my brother,” he points past Undyne to G by the door, who waves lazily as he joins the little gathering, clearly used to his brother’s antics. You squint at him in questioning, remembering the panic you had begun to feel earlier from his end of the spectrum and comparing it to how cool he is now. In a blink of an eye he’s so much more calm, and you know it’s because of Papyrus’ presence in the room.

Although your moods towards G have been turbulent as of late, you can’t help but be grateful of that, not to mention completely understanding: the warmth Papyrus naturally radiates only grows ten fold when his smile is on you.

“As a frankly wonderful person myself, it’d be impossible for me to not see how amazing you are!” Papyrus urges, his brother glancing at him in clear admiration, even with the lines of exhaustion under both of their eyes. You don’t know what to say about Papyrus’ speech, but it’d be a lie if you said you weren't fighting the urge to hide under the blanket so no one would have to see how absolutely red you had become.

“I-I,” you manage to look away, and you see them. Frisk and Toriel, Alphys and Undyne, Hollie, BP, G… they all look so proud of you, and you can’t help the laugh that escapes you, shaky and uncertain as it is. You give in, meeting his eyes again, “Okay. It’s, it’s nice to meet you, Papyrus. I-I’m Sirius Jones.”

Papyrus makes an exclamation of pure giddiness, the shine in his eyes becoming full blown stars, and Undyne barks out a laugh of her own, “Bout time, punk!”

Your smile grows, but nothing prepares you for when Papyrus leaps forward, bringing his startled brother down and wrapping his long arms around the two of you awkwardly in the same tight bear hug, causing G to sit on the bed and Gaster’s Soul to fit snugly between the three of you.

It’s one of the best things you’ve ever experienced, being captured in Papyrus’ embrace, and it doesn’t help clear the wetness from your cheeks when he confesses with his unwavering grin something breath catching: “I’ve always wanted another sibling!”

 

“everyone wants to say hello when you’re up for it.”

You glance away from Alphys’ careful observations of your Soul status with and up at G, his expression apologetic as it dawns on you what he means by this.

Papyrus is a very likable person. There’s so many things about him that draws people in and always leaves them smiling by the end of their encounters with him. So you would understand if he has droves of friends, and the constant ringing of his phone in the next room finally makes sense.

“ _Everyone_?”

G huffs a laugh at your stricken expression, Alphys frowning in shared understanding for your predicament when you meet her eyes helplessly, but the skeleton just shrugs with a grin. _Jerk._

“managed to convince them to wait a while before throwing a party to give you time to rest up,” he says, and you relax significantly, nonetheless nervous about this promise. “doctor’s orders.”

“Although, at this rate...you may be fine very soon,” Alphys speaks up, still staring at the screen in her hands, but he voice more steady than ever since she has her work to focus on.

The device she’s holding looks pretty high-tech, with a blue, glass screen with a thick, white frame. White lines scroll along the screen on one side, words that are foreign to you even if they weren’t backwards from your point of view.

Memory tells you that this is the monster’s language, one that you were easily able to translate in Gaster’s memory, but now has been rendered unreadable outside of his realm of shared knowledge.

On the other side of the screen is a simple heart shape, several lines connecting in and small paragraphs of data that disappear and reappear at different intervals.

Even if you aren’t a scientist, let alone a monster one for that matter, you can tell that the device is pretty high end, it’s purpose of scanning Souls alone making it something pretty remarkable.

According to Alphys it’s a recent adaption of her own equipment brought up from the Underground, something she could only create with the technology and means leant to her by the university, but also a device only she herself could have created after her years of working with tech.

Of course she didn’t say this outright, that was mostly G, and seeing Alphys a stuttering mess while her partner in science grinning above her was an adorable sight to watch.

_She’s so cool._

A crash in the next room, followed by a series of “NYEH”’s makes you and the doctor flinch, breaking her composure momentarily-anyway, your spectrum of traits is perfectly normal. Your Soul resonance is stable. And your magic,” she pauses, seeing the bite of your lip, but you say nothing in response. “Is at a constant state of passive activity.”

“Cool,” you reply lamely, but you’re own curiosity doesn’t allow you to leave it there. “So, um, what does that mean, exactly?”

“‘spite being in contact with gaster’s soul, your balance of traits is as it was previous to contact,” G explains, pointing at the screen where the heart shape pulsates. “with a merging of a...soul, it’s likely that your traits would change depending on their ratio compared to your own,” he says, and it’s impossible for you to not have picked up on that pause, his attention going so far as to waver and G to look at a point across the room rather than on your person.There wasn’t a wince in his expression, but you picked up on his discomfort automatically.

You notice Alphys’ mingled mask of sympathy and doubt that she directs towards him, but you hardly have time to question it when she picks up where he left off. What’s going on there?

“With a S-Soul Mate, there would be no change, but the same can be said if Gaster’s Soul had failed to merge with yours. As it seems to be the case,” she says, adjusting her glasses.

A thought comes to mind, and it’s out before the obvious answer comes to you on it’s own. “When did you get a reading of my…”

You stop, seeing G scratch at his skull from your side, and Alphys blushes, fidgeting with the travel sized monitor in her hand. Of course, she had to know because of G.

“Wha-what do you mean by Resonance?”

“soul resonance is how your soul communicates with your body,” G unexpectedly picks up the conversation, his discomfort tucked away beneath his typically blase expression. “with monsters, the soul creates a physical shape around itself, one that’s different based on parentage, personality, whatever,” he explains, his own interest in the subject given away by the gesture he makes with one hand, a finger ticked off for every point, until he shrugs. “when a person is close to death or has lost hope completely, the resonance is disrupted, and the shell deteriorates, no longer capable of holding together. dusting shows itself in lethargy, an unwillingness to eat, to speak, to live.”

An image of Sans sitting in his family home comes unbidden to mind, dusting building up around his eye sockets, and you can hear Gaster speaking slowly in your head: _“He would not eat. He would not sleep...He would not speak if spoken to or otherwise…”_

“humans are the same,” the current G interrupts the memory, and you welcome it. “when your emotions are compromised, the soul may turn inwards on itself, and it shows in the body. inexplicable health problems, a lack of a desire to care anymore.”

“You think Gaster’s Soul could have cut off that connection,” you ask, filling in the blanks.

“Precisely,” Alphys nods, still holding the device. “Your Soul was concentrating much of it’s magic on keeping his...this half of his soul intact, it could have made it difficult for your Soul to sustain the Resonance.”

“too much strain on keeping the body functional, whether from poor resonance, or too much damage done to your physical form and the soul will let go.”

And you die. That didn’t need be said.

“B-but according to this, your Resonance is completely fine,” Alphys grins reassuringly. “The-the only effect it had was sending you into unconsciousness, nothing lasting beyond that has appeared.”

 _But what if I hadn’t woken_ , you can’t help but wonder to yourself. _I’m not even hungry...I’m only tired. Would I have been like...Sleeping Beauty or something?_

“And my magic? What they said is true?”

“I, uh,” Alphys peeks up at G, and you can practically hear your frustration about whatever they’re keeping between them roaring inside of you. “Y-yes. You’ve, I mean, we not have a written health history, but from what I’ve seen, your rate of, um, healing seems rather exemplary. B-but also, from when you were hurt before, and what you’ve done now. Sustaining Gaster’s Soul. I think, I think it’s safe to say. That you. Do in fact. Have exceptional healing. Abilities.”

You're astonished by how she bit that off, and with the way she’s acting around G, you're pretty sure it’s because he’s in the room.

Trying something out, you look up at G, but direct your question at Alphys: “Does this have anything to do with the reincarnation Hollie mentioned?”

You twitch when a fire alarm sounds in the next room, G abruptly turns, walks across the room, and leaves through the open door without a word.

The silences stretches for a few seconds in his wake, as much as it can with the incessant blaring of noise, and the simultaneous yelling of Undyne, and Papyrus.

Alphys shifts uncomfortably to the side.

“Yes,” she finally answers, clearing her throat afterwards.

The front door opens in the living room, and Toriel’s panicked voice along with BP’s screeching joins the rest.

“Can I ask something?”

“Oh, um, yes! I don’t know if I’ll know the answer, but I’ll try!”

“...does this have anything to do with what happened to G in the Underground,” you ask quietly, eyes drifting to the bed spread, and the discomfort in your sternum that sprang up shortly before G left the room deepens. The topic is becoming increasingly taboo to you, and talking about it behind his back when it clearly had something to do with him felt wrong. Even if you weren’t mates, simply being almost being friends like you once were, it left a bad taste in your mouth.

There’s movement in the corner of your eye, and you have to turn your head to see Alphys’ gentle nodding: “Yes,” she replies, her tone matching your own. “I...I didn’t know G, that well? When it happened. But. It...it really hurt him.”

“And it doesn't have to do with the incident involving Papyrus?”

She shakes her head this time. “No, not that I know of.”

Then it must have something to do with what happened while you were with Gaster, the memory that left Sans near to dusting. _But what if that wasn’t the case? How many terrible things has he had to face in the Underground?_

Considering all the possibilities is getting you nowhere, you’ll have to do what you’ve been advised to and see what happens.

“It’s okay, Doctor Alphys,” you say to her, hoping to calm her nerves: you know it can’t be a great feeling finding out something terrible happened to a friend you don’t know how to help. That helplessness that comes up when you think if you ask everything will be made worse.You want to trust that they can take care of it themselves.

But who’s supposed to take care of them?

What happens if you wait too long...and it all falls apart.

 _“I don’t want to wait,”_ you think. _“Not again.”_

AD looks up at you with his big, black eyes, his ear folding under the press of your hand as you run your through his white fur.

“I’ll ask G about my Soul.”

 

“There’s one more thing left to do!”

You look up from the rim of your drink, catching Alphys just as something materializes from her phone and, after a pause, drops for her to grab it. It’s cylindrical, with a glass body, and a thick top and bottom. It’s rather big, an obvious container of somewhat, and with a few quick taps of a claw at the buttons on its top, a section of the glass slides open with a soft _hiss_.

“We-we can take Gaster’s Soul and examine it with this.”

You...you hadn’t considered that you would actually have to give up Gaster’s Soul piece. It makes sense, and even now it’s a little awkward, eating pizza with one hand.

Even when stuck with magic exhaustion, that doesn’t stop Papyrus from doing his very best in the kitchen. Subsequently this led to dinner burning to cinders, hence the reason for all the commotion earlier, and a special order was made to Grillby’s to make up for it on G’s behalf.

Papyrus complained about the choice of venue, but the fire elemental paid for the whole meal himself, and Papyrus stopped complaining after stealing a seat next to on the living room couch.

There wasn’t a lot of room to sit, and it’s pretty adorable seeing Frisk sitting in their mother’s lap, sharing a plate together, but no one was in a hurry to leave after you had finally woken up.

“You look pretty cozy,” Undyne remarked from Papyrus’ wheelchair, and you nearly think she’s talking about you being tucked under a blanket next to Paps, at his insistence, until you noticed her looking at the Soul.

You’d fallen so easily into holding onto Gaster’s Soul, it was like....holding onto a favorite stuffed animal. It just felt right, and you knew it had to have something to do with your own Soul keeping watch over it. You’re...protecting it, and you know it would be so, so easy for it to fall apart if you didn’t hold on.

“Will it really be okay?”

Alphys nods, standing between the couch and the coffee table, where G is sitting, near his brother. “Y-yeah, this, this isn’t a recent invention of mine. We’ve had them for some time,” she admits, and you wonder briefly what would require holding onto Souls in a container like that. Maybe it had something to do with her creation of the Amalgamates? “It’s not meant to hold monster--I mean, it’s not meant for pieces of Souls? But given Gaster’s situation, I think it’ll be okay as long as it has an anchor to hold itself to.”

“An anchor? Like our Souls,” you ask, looking between you and Papyrus, and Alphys nods.

“If, if we imbue it with your magic, and place his Soul inside, it should be able to hold onto it while we study it’s status, and, and until we’re able to, uh. Fix it, I suppose.”

Fix it?

Without thinking, your eyes zip to G, where the other half of Gaster’s Soul waits.

Oh.

“Oh, _goddamnit_ ,” BP snaps from your other side, and starts to march from the room. You stand up after him, “BP!” and follow him down the hall branching off from the living room, halting in your tracks when the guest bathroom door is shut in your face.

“BP-.”

“ _Go away_ .” His voice comes muffled through the door, but that doesn’t stop you from hearing something clatter to the ground, followed by a quick “ _Goddamn it-!_ ” from his side.

“BP, please?”

“...no.”

You try at the doorknob, forced to readjust the blanket on your shoulders so it doesn’t fall, before trying to enter...and it opens.

Looking inside you see your roommate and friend in the bathtub, his legs drawn up to his chest, head tucked between his crossed arms, and ears lowered. Definitely not a good sign.

“You didn’t lock the door?”

“It’s a metaphor,” he mumbles.

_He forgot._

Closing the door behind you, you step across the smooth, clean tiles. The small room is spotless, despite its disuse, and you think that it must be because of Hollie that it was in this state. You have to side step around a bottle of soap on the floor, why does a skeleton need soap? but manage to not completely wipe out when you climb into the tub with one hand and balancing the blanket on your shoulders.

The tub is big enough for you both to fit in the same position, but so small that you have to place each foot on the other side of his own. There’s not any crying, but BP’s not much of a teary guy in front of people if he can help it, that night at the hospital being a rare exception.

You don’t know what to say, deciding to wait and let him speak. BP doesn't disappoint.

“Down in the Underground a lot of monsters gave up on living. Some days someone you’d see around town would stop showing up because they suddenly fell down and dusted,” he says without looking up, and you don’t reply, listening to everything he needs to say as he says it. “Family, friends, didn’t matter. Towards the end everyone was more hopeful, but it still happened. You know MK? He lives with some suit that used to order from the store when I worked there. Found out after we left the Underground that he lost his parents along time ago and after that, his sibling vanished, too. He lost his home, and was stuck living at the dump.”

A flash of memory from Gaster’s attempt at parting the barrier comes to you, his closest employees and fellow scientists standing around him. One of them is dinosaur like, armless, with spikes protruding from their head, and they’re smiling brightly as everyone else there.

_Shit._

“I...I didn’t know. He came in the store sometimes. I asked him where his parents were, trying to get rid of the little guy, you know? But he always said they were busy, not to tell them he was there,” he goes on, a tightness to his voice that wasn’t there previously, and you want to lean in closer, but your own fear of breaking the moment or scaring him away makes you think better.

“I told myself that no matter how hard working for Mettaton got, I’d never let myself dust. But it was hard, sometimes. I didn’t have friends that cared. I sent my family in the capital money but they were so busy. Fred made me feel better. I think I knew, but I also didn’t? A guy like him and a guy like me? Couldn’t be. I liked seeing him really. But he was it. Just him, a bastard boss, and a kid that would come in looking for handouts.” He laughs mirthlessly, the sound dry and quiet, it almost sounds like a sigh.

“Then I get to the Surface and find out that I’m pretty well off with the gold I have. I see the stars and the open air and Fred confesses but fuck there are so many fucking people and my very own first place gets burned down that _I_ paid for.

“Fred offered to let me shack up with him, but I couldn’t do that. Too used to being a burden in a family of ten, and I was still scared of sharing space like that, of being wanted or whatever.  
“Then I met you.”

BP lifts his head from his knees, revealing that the whites of his eyes have turned red, and his mouth is set in a stubborn line. “I’m not going to stop you from being you, I know you have to help those boneheads get their family back, but, uh,” his gaze wavers, pupils tracing along the edge of the bathtub, and hands gripping tight on his arms as his chin sinks behind them again, leaving only his eyes unguarded, the space between them crinkling when they turn upwards

“It’d be _nice_ to not lose my own?”

“Can, can we-?”

BP opens his arms, and you push yourself towards him with some effort smushing yourself between his legs and against his chest. His arms wrap around you tightly, face pressing into your hair. “You're the worst sibling friend thing ever.”

“I know,” you say, smile threatening to show at the childish way he says it.

“Fuck this soulmate crap, who needs them?”

“You really love Frederick, BP.”

“I know,” he mumbles and says: “I love you, too, Siri.”

You hiccup into his shoulder, shoulders shaking when you laugh.

“I love you, too, BP.”

The silence draws out, punctured by something that suspiciously sounds like some nose clearing from your best friend, and a creak outside the bathroom door.

“That soul thing is still in your hand, isn’t it?”

“...yeah?”

“Their dad is playing third wheel to my pity party.”

You laugh again, and try not to argue with him about the way he phrased his talk with you. He wouldn’t appreciate it. “Yeah, he is.”

“That’s weird, Siri.”

“He’s actually scattered across time and space, so...he’s sort of been third wheel to every-.” BP stiffens, and curiosity drags you away from his embrace to see his _absolutely horrified expression._

“Are you-,” you start, grin spreading as you already start to understand.

_"I really like Fred, okay?”_

“Oh my god, BP!” Your exclamation is met with disgust and so much self-loathing, it breaks you.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone Sans’ dad--- _stop laughing!_ Siri, are you being serious?”

“I’m always Sirius.”

“NO.”

_“Holy fuck, your dad can see everything?”_

Your laughter and BP’s outrage are cut off, BP’s hand stopping from shoving your face away as you desperately cling onto him, and more voices join Undyne’s outside the door,

_“heh, yep.”_

_“Brother! Tell me my new sibling isn’t telling puns!”_

_“sorry, paps.”_

_“No, you are not!”_

_“you caught me.”_

_“That was quite well done, the situation was getting pretty Sirius, wasn’t it?”_

_“Look what you’ve done! Frisk! Stop laughing!”_

_“I-I think they can hear us.”_

“I CAN SMELL YOU, TOO,” BP shouts, a series of Undyne's “ _Oh, shit_ ,” Toriel and Papyrus' simultaneous reprimand, AD's barking, and G's chuckling in the hallway following after.

BP sighs loudly. “Putting on a show for everyone today, aren't I?”

And you giggle in response, “Your performance was exemplary.”

“Shut up,” he grumbles, but he’s smiling despite it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little shorter then normal, but i think maybe i'm starting to shake off on the cobwebs? also fixed the link to the story playlist, lemme know if that doesn't work out again and i  
> i'll see what i can do! chap was going to be a tad shorter, but then bp got pretty angry...poor guy needs a break.  
> see you guys next time :D


	22. Of Ghosts and Grieving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chap inspo: "pu ert jordin", Olafur Arnalds, and "Ren trystnad", Library Tapes, both ft. on the TSB playlist :D

Letting go of Gaster’s Soul had been as hard as you expected, and yet not.

You had watched the slow entrance of the sliver of his being from your hands and into the container with wide, watching eyes, and gentle coaxing at both your own soul and his, until finally it was released. It bobbed once, and then stabilized, floating gently within, moving ever so much in place. It was the life echoing within it, reminding you of how no matter how much you, as a human being, tried to remain still yourself, your own pulse, and your own breathing would not allow it on a minute, almost invisible level.

After freeing him from your grasp, the window slid shut, and you tucked the container close to your chest, as close as you could keep it to the center of your being.

“Holding the container should allow for his, for Gaster’s Soul to remain in contact with yours.” Alphys had stood with eyes locked in fascination on the subject of their discussion in the living room that night, and you understood why she couldn’t turn herself away. As a scientist, it’s a positively enthralling case that could mean so much for her research. As a living creature, it’s captivating in a way that fairy tales and dreams often are. And a friend, it’s important in a way that nearly everyone that existed outside of that room would be able to understand.

“The glass will not break the connection, and traces of your magic will be taken up by the Soul container,” she explained, and you noticed the meter on top of the container. It was small, round, with a glass face, and as you looked at it, you thought that at the very center, a pin prick of blue light came into being. “After it fills, we, G and I, should be able to take it back to the lab for study,” she said, looking over at her partner with a nod, a rare show of confidence shining in her eyes and clenched in one tight fist.

“Since, since your magic is still growing stronger, it’ll be a slow process. Sorry,” she rubbed her fringe in embarrassment, Undyne clapping her on the back and giving her the stunning, gleaming smile she needed.

“Don’t just worry about that old geezer, Jones,” Undyne said, locking a stern eye with yours. “You’ve gotta look after yourself as well, okay? Especially after everything you...after,” Undyne trailed off, uncharacteristically quiet. “You saved my best friend in the whole world. There wasn’t anything we could do, I felt so helpless, and I hate that.” She scowled, her yellow eye dropping to the floor, and everyone else in the room looked just as sullen. It wasn’t as bright without Papyrus there.

He was tired, somewhere just after your friends had stopped eavesdropping on your conversation with BP, all of his energy had just left him. Undyne had carried him stubbornly to his room, Papyrus muttering under his breath about how he didn’t need sleep, his eyelids were just acting up was all. He was snoring as soon as he hit his blankets, Undyne tucking him in and pecking him messily on the head with an endearingly, aching smile that said everything.

“Being locked in the Underground, it felt like there wasn’t anything we could do, and nearly losing, Papyrus...it wasn’t right,” she huffed, a few sharp fangs peeking out with her frown. “But then this happened, and he’s awake now, but you had to go and hurt yourself along the way.” She shakes her head when you started to protest, and you closed your mouth. “I get it, you didn’t see it coming. But Papyrus, he wouldn’t forgive himself if saving him meant someone else had to suffer for it. You’ve gotta make up for scaring us all like that,” she smiled, eye closing with the effort, but you thought maybe there was something else she was trying to hold back, the increased sheen in her eye giving her away. “This means bunches of time spent with us and Papyrus, alright? And plenty of bed rest! We owe you, Jones.”

Much later after the exchange, you're still thinking about how everyone had smiled then. How could people be so grateful and still have tears in their eyes? Ever since monsterkind was freed, and you had met them, you had witnessed that sight more often in your life then you had ever before.

“How can they smile so much, Aludra?”

Your mutter is met with the soft hiss over the shower, the rushing of water around your form as you sit on the bottom of the bathtub, in no hurry to leave. You're practically having a spiritual experience right now, feeling the warm slip of water over your legs and breathing in the misty warmth of the air. The only thing that made the moment...odd, to say the least, was the towel wrapped container sitting in your lap still holding Gaster’s Soul.

It’d been a conundrum figuring out how to wash up after three entire days of no showing with Gaster’s Soul still in need of attention. Your magic had barely began to fill up the container, so sitting it aside for even a few minutes was hardly an option. Monster Souls are fragile, disappearing at a much faster rate, according to Alphys, then human Souls are capable of. And you didn’t want to think of what would happen if Gaster’s Soul fragment disappeared into the Void.

G himself had directed you around the small space, pointing out the towels in the cabinet over the sink, and the familiar bottles of shampoo that he had brought over from Toriel’s apartment.

“figured the industrial sized t’oreal hair wash wasn’t yours,” he’d cracked weakly, standing in the bathroom doorway with both hands hidden away in his jean pockets. “practically had her name on it…”

“Thank you,” you replied, not trusting your voice to break with questions right then and there. You were bursting with them, but it wasn’t the time to be asking them, with nearly everyone in the next room settling down for an overnight sleepover.

Since Papyrus had woken up it’d been next to impossible for the others to convince themselves to leave you learned. G’s fridge was packed with home cooked Toriel and Undyne had made, dishes switching between perfect to charred to perfection. Frisk stayed when they could, but still had school to attend to, which led to them leaving random school supplies on the dining room table, while Toriel had brought over her knitting basket to help pass the time. They had to go home sometimes though, and you had yet to ask how Flowey was doing, the sentient flower monster very much absent after you had woken up and found their sibling and guardian at G’s.

You don’t know how G feels being in a house that was once barely used to one that’s bursting with hushed chapter and, barely, muffled guffaws, signs of who kept coming and going all over the place, but he seemed pretty passive about it. Like he does most things.

As it was, silence fell between you in the bathroom, but G left you quickly after that, closing the door behind him and leaving you be. You sighed, a strangeness working it’s way under your skin with finally being left alone, more or less, for the first time in ours. It burst and faded with Undyne’s sudden laughter in the next room, and you were glad it was gone, finally giving in and preparing for a much needed bath. Once you thought about it, you felt really gross.

Your hair needed brushing, and it’s amazing how much discomfort you can accumulate not moving for days on end in a air conditioned apartment. The shower felt amazing, to say the least, hence part of the reason you’re having a hard time getting out of it. Heck, you were grateful you could take one at all! You weren’t sure if the device could handle water until you had haltingly asked Doctor Alphys if it was okay.

Pulling back the top edge of the towel you have wrapped around Gaster’s container, you glimpse the blackness inside, and note that it’s much dryer then the outside, the cloth soaked completely through.

But at least Gaster couldn’t “see” you.

...although technically he could see all things right now if he wants to, a store bought piece of cloth isn’t going to help.

“This is dumb,” you mumble, but still don’t remove it, clinging to that small shred of comfort it still lends you despite how illogical it is.

_“You remind me of someone I once knew.”_

Those words have been circling around inside your head since you first heard them, that night at the bar. Who was she talking about, you had to wonder then. And then later when Fuku called you by their name at the gas station, you hadn’t argued about it.

Maybe it was because of what you heard about G, beating up terrorists in dark alleyways, and how distracted you were about him disappearing at the sight of your Words, his Words...but it hadn’t bother you.

_“Can you tell me someday about Mei?”_

Reincarnation. G’s past as Sans. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon for you to put the pieces together one by one, and you're reminded of what he said once, about Grillby at his bar. He found his Soulmate after so, so long without them, and all because the had reincarnated into a human.

You place a hand against your chest, pressing your palm against your wet skin, and feeling for the culmination of your entire being, tying you to this world. Who were you once before you were you?

“Mei?”

You wait, and nothing happens. The shower keeps running, your heart keeps beating, and in the other room, the others quiet down for sleep.

You don’t know what you expected, but your Soul has nothing to say.

 

A sweep of warm air follows you into the dark when the bathroom light is turned off, and with padding feet you walk down the hallway, to the living room.

Peering inside, you spy the flickering of the television on inky black walls. Undyne’s head has fallen onto Alphys' shoulder, the two sitting propped in front of the couch, and the barest hint of Undyne’s wrinkling nose giving away the life sleeping there.

Toriel is on the other end of the couch, farthest from the front door, and in her blanketed, great arms Frisk is curled, fists clutching onto cloth, legs escaping over their mother’s lap and onto the cushions next to her. They’re starting to get pretty big, but you doubt that will ever change how close those two are.

BP is absent, and it had taken sometime to convince him to go home to Frederick, the other monster eager for news after his shift at his ice cream parlor in town. BP’s claws had pricked into your sides when he hugged you goodbye, but you had only smiled, not commenting on how hard he had clung on before abruptly releasing you.

Who else is missing but the skeleton brothers, and at the thought of them you turn back down the hallway, ignoring G’s room in favor of Papyrus’.

A gentle nudge and you can see inside, standing in the hall in borrowed clothing, an over sized shirt that says “Cool Bro” in large, stenciled letters, and a pair of pajama pants that are capri shorts on Paps.

G is there, sitting in his customary chair beside his brother’s bed, and it’s deja vu. The obvious differences are that the story book is already closed in G’s lap, the ending long since reached, and Papyrus is splayed haphazardly in his sleep, jaw gaping, expression on of perfect, exhausted peace. Lastly is the beastie lifting his head from tucked paws beside Paps, AD’s tail whipping from left to right at your presence until he settles down again, comfortable with one of Paps’ arms wrapped around his torso.

You think about maybe leaving, giving G more time to be with his brother and think about how he was very much alive rather than constantly fearing for the opposite, but his voice stops you when you shift in place to go. “siri.” Tired, always tired.

You step inside, going to stand next to the bed and he raises the book in his lap, not looking at you right away, “think he’s disappointed about falling asleep. kept saying a while ago about how he wanted you to him.”

A soft sound escapes you at the sight of the familiar pair on the front of the cover, the finish gleaming with moonlight caught from the window with it’s open blinds. Disappointment mingled with a nervous anticipation swells in your chest cavity at the image of Papyrus with eyes wide open, eagerly listening to every word. It clogs your throat, and you swallow the pressure down, eyes skating away over the youngest brother in silent apology. _Next time_ , you promise, and for once it doesn’t come with the worry that that may not happen.

G pats the bedspread where he’s sat in the past, telling you about how Papyrus had begun to dream again, and you sit down, finally seeing his expression in full since entering the room.

Caught in swathes of shadow and light, G appears distracted, but his expression is...smoother than it has been previously. There’s a tension there that’s finally gone, one that’s glaring in its absence, but in every way it’s loss can only mean good. A scar finally fading, flowers blooming after a millennia of grey, someone reuniting with who they love most in the entire world.

“you gave me back my brother.”

Your Soul rises into your throat anew, tightening your grip on Gaster’s container, and you hope that you never have to hear that rough, relief stained echo to his voice ever again. Not if it means seeing the grief in his eye as you do now, or repeating everything that’s lead up until now. Hearing those words from G, in that tone of voice, you don’t think G could survive the journey here again.

“but i don’t want you to do what you plan on doing.”

“G-.”

He shakes his head, his voice rising ever so much, but still hushed not because of the other occupant in the room, but because you don’t think he can manage anymore right now. “three days, siri.” G looks away, clasping his hands together and tightening them as hard as he is capable. “my soul is different than his. it’s nearly merged to the point that i don’t know where gaster’s ends and sans’ begins. do you see me,” he asks, releasing his grip to run a finger from his left hand down the crack that starts at the bottom of one eye and ends at his mouth.

“this isn’t like what paps was going through. if you were to try separating me, it could take a lot more than three days as payment.”

G’s hand drops to his lap, and you examine it distantly, noting the hole in his palm, perfectly round. It’s a strange thing to notice, that G, Sans, was born from Gaster’s left hand, and that’s the one G tends to use the most.

Gaster standing in a void filled to the brim with life, but unable to reach out and touch it no matter how much he wants to.

“I made a promise.”

“forget about promises, siri,” G hisses, but when your eyes tilt sharply up, you see that he’s not looking at you. Any vehemence he held in that demand was directed at his fisting hands resting on his knees. “how can anyone make a promise if that means someone else might die because of it?”

“If I don’t then someone will die anyways.”

G’s shoulders rise, but he doesn’t turn his head.

“If I didn’t Papyrus…” You stop. You don’t know. Maybe things would have been okay eventually, but you don’t know that at all. It may have been an accident, but it was worth it in the end, wasn’t it?

But what if you had died? What would you be leaving behind? Aludra is dead, but there’s BP. BP who’s confessed to loving you, who’s called you family. But he has Frederick, doesn’t he? He has his Soul Mate, and G would have his brother, and what kind of world is it where Papyrus has to die?

“you don’t get to say that your life is worth less than anyone else’s,” G says, as if he knows exactly what you’re thinking.

“Do you,” you ask him, perhaps petulantly, maybe with accusation, but it’s enough to get him to look you in the eye when you say what you do next: “Who are you to judge who I decide what my life is worth sacrificing for?”

Wonder, shock, you don’t know what it is, but G was obviously unprepared for that, and in the next moment his widening eyes narrows with his abrupt laugh, shoulders slumping as he leans back in his chair. Papyrus mumbles in his sleep, pressing his face into AD’s chin when he turns over, but lays still in the few moments of silence.

G breaks his gaze on the ceiling and tilts his chin down, down, staring into the holes of his palms. “i’m scared, siri.”

You don’t ask why, but you have some idea. Having his Soul tampered with, the possibility of his dad being lost in the end no matter what, and, yes, you dying in front of him. It flutters uncomfortably in your chest, the weight of these possibilities growing with each breath.

“i have difficulties telling my memories apart from his, who lived what moments and who didn’t,” G speaks, and you know he means Gaster. “i call myself g because that’s who i am,” he says, and your spine straightens subtly. Your attention clears, something in you saying this is it, this is the beginning of the answers you’ve been looking for since you met, standing in the snow and watching his silhouette grow smaller in the distance.

“i see my soul as it is now, and it’s mine. it’s bruised and discolored, but it’s mine. it looks nothing like yours.”

“What?”

G doesn’t respond right away, your question barely a whisper, and he can’t look at you. What is he trying to say?

“remember the first day we met?”

“Yeah.” Of course you do, you’ve been thinking about it nearly every day since. “You called yourself Sans.”

“when i saw you.” He stops, and tries again. “i thought i knew your soul. i thought it was mine and i thought you were mine, too.”

He knew.

He knew you were his Soul Mate the second he saw you?

“i saw you and you looked…” he breathes in, something shudders in his bones, but you're frozen in place. This is actually happening. “i told you my name was sans because i thought for one moment that i was.”

Your brow furrows softly when you take in his words, and the tremor that dances along his fingertips and lightens on his tongue. That fear is growing, growing.

“i didn’t say anything because you were human, a stranger, and i realized where i was. who i am. i took one look at my soul and compared it to yours...they look nothing alike.”

“B...but my,” you grit your teeth and try again. “You saw my Words. They’re what you said when we met.”

“i did. me,” he replies, voice picking up speed with each new word: “with two souls that can’t tell the difference between each other. sans, gaster, g, _i don’t know who said those words, siri._ ” His eye light is tiny, a pinprick in his skull. “what happens if you take gaster away from me, g dies, and your words disappear?”

That…that was never anything you had considered happening.

You considered...never having a Soul Mate. You considered, no, _knew_ you would try and help Gaster, Papyrus, G.

But if G essentially dies-.

 _“My father told me,”_ Fuku says in your memory of the gas station, the two of your standing outside it’s windows, and breathing in the cold night air. “ _He told me it’s like the pain We felt when We first split and fell to earth.”_

Gods taking stars and ripping them apart, like a child pulling off the wings of a butterfly.

The same horror that took hold of your Soul and gripped it hard then came back now, and you close a fist against your chest next to Gaster, fluttering quietly within his container.

“i don’t want to do that to anyone,” G is saying, and now his very speech is trembling, the panic you felt earlier in he day settling into his bones, seeping into the confines of your body. You notice it then, around the room, the haze of blue creeping up on objects, a distant wave of awe washing over you as several of Papyrus’ figures begin to hover in midair.

Papyrus’ blanket flutters, the ambiance of magic catching at it’s edges, and even the fur trim to G’s coat shifts in an unseen breeze. It’s all G, you know this, but you're too lost in the moment to be sane enough to try and calm him down. How can you do that when you’re hardly calm yourself?

“You left me behind.”

“you scare the hell out of me, siri.”

The chair protests under the pressure of his clutching hands, holding fast to its seat on either side of his legs, and you can’t believe what you just heard.

“when...after we met and i convinced myself that i was imagining things, i thought it was okay. we could be pals, hang out, you were a friend. then i saw those words and i couldn’t anymore. it’s like a narcotic, i crave it, but it could kill me if it happened again.”

Again.

“i had paps, and i had a lot of time given to me down there,” here his mouth twists, a smirk devoid of humor, and settles down again. “since meeting you, i’ve remembered. i don’t want to do that to you,” his hands go up, covering his face, and one foot taps out a rhythm with his heel against the floor.  

It takes over, that need to reach forward and soothe him, a person in the middle of something really bad, but you’re scared that it’ll only be made worse and your mind is still playing that one word on repeat. “im a pathetic coward, siri. i never want to feel that way again.

“and what kind of sick bastard do i have to be to risk it happening to you?”

That’s it. That’s what happened that day in the underground? When Sans was only five years old and nothing in the world that Gaster could do could put him back together again?

He lost his Soul Mate?

“i don’t want you to ever have to feel that, siri,” G confesses, and slowly, surely, the last piece falls into place: “and i don’t want you to die again.”

“Mei was?”

Ozone wind the shuddering of wood a world painted in black

You fall back, pressed into the ground by the weight of a hand on your lips, covering your mouth, and softness comes up to meet you. It’s cold and then, slowly, it’s wet. Air that was once comfortable now bites at your skin, and a gentle breeze stirs your hair as it rests around your head in the snow. A new wetness joins it, falling with each quake of G’s frame as he hovers over you. It comes slowly, the knowledge that you are now outside, that someone is crying, and G is pleading for you to stop.

“ _please_ ,” he whispers, harshly. “please don’t say that name.” It turns into a prayer, his head sinking slowly beside yours, hand slipping from your mouth to grip the snow beside you. “ _please please please_.”  
This is not a decision you consciously make, it is one you knew already that you had to do, and as your open arm lifts, you pull him closer, because right now G is five, and he’s a little boy in his someone’s arms, rejecting all the choices the world has left to offer him.

“G,” you try, but he keeps whispering, whispering, whispering, and you try again. “I’m here, it’s okay.”

His breath hitches, and his arms move closer. Gaster is between you and him, but you get as close as you are able to, pressing your cheek against his bone and ignoring the stinging in your eyes. “I’m alive, G," your voice comes strained, but it is not your pain that you focus on.  "I’m here, everything is going to be okay, and Papyrus is okay, and, and,” you stumble, trying to find something to say, and hating the tears building up in your eyes, blinking them away with restless irritation. You can’t stand hearing him cry, feeling it fill your Soul to a brim, spilling over, and _stars_ you’re so useless at this, but you have to keep trying: “Papyrus is sleeping, he’s in bed and you’ll get to talk to him tomorrow, and I’ll be okay. I’m not going to die, I promise.”

“ _no_.” He shakes his head, holds on tighter, warding you both against that one word.

“I promise, because it’s _not_ going to happen,” you state firmly, as confidently as you can manage, fighting the panic in your Soul, and trying as hard as you can to make him feel it, too. “Sans. I’m not going to leave you ever again, I promise, Sans,” your voice is turning into a plea, and you rein it in, trying to smile, to inject some sort of light heartedness into this moment that’s anything but. “You can’t get rid of me, you can’t be,” you think, “you can’t be _sans_ me. _Fuck_.” A stupid joke isn’t going to work! “I-I mean, you can be Sans me, but, but not _sans_ me, because I’m not leaving.”

G’s shaking increases, causing you to falter, afraid that you’ve only made things worse--but then it comes, an urge to laugh. “G? G, are you-?” The sound of a snort stops your before you can get out the “okay?” and you turn your head, seeing the tears in the corner of his eyes, and the fragility of his smile.

“It wasn’t _that_ bad,” you protest, embracing the insult ten fold, knowing it’ll make it worse, and it does, as an actual chuckle escapes into the snow from his teeth. Victory alights in your system at the sound of it, but you aren’t ready to let go of him yet. The discomfort of his terror is still there, but it’s loosening it’s fingers inch by inch, as surely as the beads of sweat on his brow are softening into thin rivulets of moisture.

 _“sans_ you?”

“L-like two people together, but not, not that kind. Just me, here, with you and-,” G snickers into your shoulder, obviously amused by your attempts to clear up your statement. You groan, at a complete loss. Uttering a sigh that’s more for your little victory then it is for your defeat, you look towards the sky, rubbing your hand across his back, and it’s hard not to notice the way he slumps into your person.

Only parts of G is in contact with you, a touch of cheeks, a leg between yours and another at your side, one hand beside your right arm, his right folded next to your left. The you from a month or so ago would be dying with the amount of blood that would be shooting from your heart to your skull in this moment. The current you is still blushing, but you can at least partially blame that on the cold.

Gaster is the only thing keeping you from full body contact, _Like a chaperone on a study date._

G hears you sniff, turns his head in question, and without a beat you tell him, sending your friend into laughter all over again, and despite yourself you begin to smile until your grin turns into giggling. Maybe you’re too tired, or it’s the relief that somehow you think you’ve helped him, or maybe it is funny after all, especially after your talk with BP on the very same subject.

But whatever it is, you're happy, and that happiness lends itself to you the thought that maybe, just maybe everything will be okay.

“At least I can’t be your father’s Soul Mate.” G’s eye whips to you and you notice the way his grin has dropped, leading your own to tug downwards at it’s corners. “You...you aren’t afraid of that, are you?”

He doesn’t answer, and it’s your own disbelief that keeps your from worrying at the loss of his good humor. “He didn’t tell you he’s a Whole Soul?”

“ _what?_ ”

G rockets to a sitting position, and it’s his saucer-wide eye sockets that send you into a fit, laughter causing you to cling to Gaster’s container and press a smile into the top of it’s lid. “ _He-he didn’t tell you?_ ”

“siri,” G’s sighs, asking for mercy, but even that doesn’t cover up the way his smile is fidgeting to reappear at the sight of you in near hysterics.

“Your _dad_ as my Soul Mate? Did you never have the Souls and the bees ta-?”

Your open mouth is filled with cold, and you quickly go to cough out the snow that’s landed on your face, straightening up in time to see G scramble off you and move a safe distance away. “Hey!” Your shout of outrage does nothing to stop his laughter from echoing around the area, your brain finally picking up on the details and letting you know where he brought you: the park where you last met.

Swing sets laden with white, bare tree limbs splayed across an expanse of black, endless night. Winter is thick and looming, and it’s left the world under a sky full of stars.

Indignation causes you to pull in a huff, filling your cheeks, and leading to successfully causing G to laugh again. Standing up but remaining in place, you refuse to go to him, to cross the few feet separating you now, and you're dimly aware of the fact that this reminds you exactly of the night when he shot you down.

G’s laughing quiets, his eye sockets soft, and his mouth grinning only gently. You do nothing as he picks up his feet and walks back in your direction, stopping directly in front of you to glance at the container in your hands. Deciding something, G pockets his hands, leans forward, over the capsule, and air escapes you when he taps his forehead against your own, leaving it there in the closest gesture he can get to an embrace.

“thank you, siri,” he mutters, meeting your eyes with his own, and his voice deepening an octave in its sincerity. “for everything. i’m sorry for being an ass.”

“You…”

You try to say, _you had your reasons_. And he really did, still does, but-.

“my issues don’t excuse what i did,” he removes his forehead, and, smiling wryly, shrugs. “an ass is an ass no matter what kind of skirt it's sportin'. i don’t wanna assume that i hurt you, but-.” He frowns, searching for what words to say, and you wait for them. “we were friends, and i didn’t treat you like one.”

“You can make up for it,” you begin, and the light of his eye strengthens with the force of your voice and the flash of your smile of confidence; G’s willing to listen to whatever it is that you ask. “Believe I can do this.”

You don’t know what he has to think about this, but after a moment, he nods, thin grin tilting up, and he offers you his hand. You glance at it, not understanding, and a huff of a amusement escapes his exposed nasal passage.

“you’re turning blue.”

Oh.

Copying his expression, you place your free hand in his, he steps close again, and the smell of rain runs along your senses.

 

The darkness dims, shadows gaining shape, and boundary, and you find that the two of you are standing in the hall of his home. G holds up your hand, not letting go, and blows a breath of warm air onto your fingers, rubbing them between his own. He looks faintly irritated with himself, and the gesture tells you it’s because of the sudden trip outdoors he forced on you. You think to reassure him, you weren’t really out there for very long, but a sound stops both of your lines of thought in their tracks.

“Brother?”

Holding onto your hand, G takes the few paces to Papyrus’ door, you following after in his stead. Papyrus is sitting up in bed, peering into the darkness until he sees the two of you enter, and the smile you're greeted with automatically sends you into one of your own.

“hey, paps.”

“What are you two doing up? Sleep is a very important part of a person’s daily routine!”

“says the guy who used to complain every time he caught me in bed back home,” G replies, taking his chair beside the bed, and you can’t help but notice the easy grin he’s wearing himself.

“Excessive napping is not the same as getting a healthy eight hours, _nyeh_ ,” Paps points out with a literal raised pointer finger, but his admonishment clears when he looks at you. “You're lucky you have such an awesome friend to look after you! Where would you be if you didn’t have someone to keep you company when I’m not around?”

“i’d lose myself, paps,” G says, his smile unfaltering when you glance at him in barely hidden concern, worried about how much truth there is behind this.

“Thankfully- _ahh.”_ Whatever Papyrus was going to say next is drowned in a jaw popping yawn, an impressive length considering the length of his face, and G chuckles from beside you, already beginning to stand again: “looks like it’s time for bed. i’m just gonna take siri to theirs-.”

“Nonsense,” Papyrus interrupts you both from leaving, although you're wondering exactly what G meant. When he said your bed did he mean Toriel’s couch or the one you’d taken from him? You wouldn’t doubt that he’d stay up the rest of the night next to Papyrus’, whatever the case, but-. “There’s plenty of room in mine for my wonderful new sibling!”

“But, I uh-.” He wasn’t wrong, but sleeping next to anyone isn’t something you’ve done since your mother was still alive, and you had to share a bed with your brother. Not that there isn’t room, given your size compared to his, but... “You're still healing.”

“As is your case as well, human sibling,” Papyrus states. “And did not Doctor Alphys mention something about you having remarkable healing abilities," he asks with a clever raise of his bony brow.

“he has a point,” G agrees, and your eyebrows raise at the sound of it.

Two against one. Something wiggles under Papyrus’ blanket, and AD pokes his nose out from the end of the bed, yipping delightfully, and you think you spy the faint movement of his tail hidden away with the rest of him.

Make that three.

“Okay,” you give in, but honestly its really hard not to.

You're pretty stiff as you crawl into bed with Papyrus, the skeleton pulling back the blanket for you to lay down, and tucking it up, over Gaster’s container after. You roll over on your side, it falls between you and him, and Papyrus takes the chance to sling his arms around the both of you. AD crawls out from under the blankets, reasserting himself on your legs, his weight adding to the incredible amount of comfort the situation has miraculously created.

“There’s nothing better then cuddling up platonically with the ones you love,” Papyrus says close to your ear, and the honesty behind it is enough for you to give in, smile, and giggle into the pillows. This is ridiculous. This is amazing.

“gotta agree with you there,” you hear G reply.

“Don’t think you’re running away, brother, the great Papyrus insists that you join us immediately!”

“sorry, bro, there’s just too much of me to go around.” There’s the small pressure of something over your shins that isn’t AD. You glance down, over the blanket, and see that G has laid the bottom half of himself, from just below his pelvic bone to his bare feet on the bed, leaving the rest of him planted firmly in his chair. “i’m all legs.”

“Brother!

G’s laughter joins your own, and Papyrus is smiling, no matter how bad the joke was.

Sleep descends on you faster than it has in sometime, sending you into nearly dreamless slumber. Save for in one instance, wherein you think you see someone smiling at you from afar, Gaster’s white visage glowing against a backdrop of an innumerable amount of small, glittering lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it! The shoe dropped! Everyone knows now! And I hope you all understand a little bit more why G is acting like he is?  
> Sans already lost a Soul Mate once, when he was five. That is not a trauma anyone should have to face, let alone a child. So when G discovered that Siri is his, or Sans, Mate, he fled! Because he was terrified! Is still terrified!  
> Because now, with what's happened, he's deduced that Siri taking the remainder of Gaster's Soul could 1) kill Siri, leading to him, or a recovered Sans facing the loss of a Mate, or 2) "kill" G, a near fusion of Sans and Gaster, who could be Siri's Soul Mate, and thus leading to Siri experiencing that pain. G does NOT want Siri to chance dying or facing the same horrible trauma that Sans did.  
> On that note, I will be adding a new tag to this story for child death. As players of UT, it's something we're all familiar with in terms of plot, but personally it's something that hits me particularly hard whenever I see it in movies and whatnot, so I want to be careful. I'll re-add the tag a-la Rehlia's warning method in the actual chapter, along with others, when the time comes.  
> Thank you guys for reading!! I can't wait to read your comments!!!!!


	23. Of Breakfast and Banter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh late again!

He is tall, and he is distant. Around him is white, white, white, a void filled to the brim with substance and life. It’s like looking at a person at the end of a hall, lit with blinding light, no matter how hard you try to focus your eyes the image refuses to sharpen.

You can make out color and shape. The long length of his legs. The shape of his cheek when he turns his head.

His name is on your lips when you open your eyes, and you wonder why, faintly, your brother would be waking you when you know you should have no school to go to today. Then the image fades, you remember that he’s been dead for some time, but you aren’t alone.

You aren’t comfortable, not completely, that’s something you become aware of very quickly. There’s something under the slope of your neck, and you see that Papyrus’ arm is still tucked underneath like a makeshift pillow as he lies sprawled next to you. Another thing is the smooth cylinder shape under your left arm, a quick peek reminding you that it’s Gaster’s container wedged between you and your newest, self-declared sibling. Movement draws your eye, and with some effort you force yourself to sit up in the morning sunlight, propping yourself up with one arm and meeting the round, black eyes of a certain someone on the end of the bed.

AD wags his curled tail once, his jaw dropping open when he sees that he has your attention, and you dare to lift your hand away from Gaster for a moment. AD takes his chance and moves into your palm, pressing his nose against skin and leaning into your curling fingers.

“Did you wake me,” you ask the dog accusingly, trying for grumpiness, and utterly failing at the sight of the happy lollying of his tongue.

Someone breathes in and out sharply, and you finally notice G still very much stuck in the same position as he was last night. The only difference is that the typically cool looking skeleton is down for the count, his jaw parted and a hint of something blue seeping out from one corner of his mouth.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” you have to cover your mouth to smother your reaction to the sight of him _literally drooling in front of you._ Why would he even have spit? How does monster biology work without a stomach? Why haven’t you asked him yet?

Oh, yeah, because it would be mortifying.

_“Fu-fudge!”_

The sharp exclamation from Undyne coming from somewhere else in the flat destroys the aura of peace hanging in the room, and G jolts in his chair, legs hitting the ground in a way that very much reminds you of the day before. His jaw snaps closed, eye sockets flaring open in surprise until they fall to a shudder, blinking with sleepy disorientation.

“ _whas that_ ,” he rasps, voice less polished than usual, not to mention _deeper_ for that matter, as he glances around, not appearing to really be registering his surroundings until he focuses on Papyrus sitting up in a belated rush next to you.

“W-WHO YELLED? WHAT- what’s happening?”

You give into your laughter and brothers’ eyes swivel to you in shared confusion, not helping your amusement in the least bit. “It was Undyne in the kitchen.”

Comprehension dawns with both of them at once. G hums like a turntable left on long after it’s record has long since stopped playing, sinking into his chair bonelessly as a skeleton is capable of.

Meanwhile Papyrus utters a bright “Ah! Of course! I knew that!”

Sleepiness and bewilderment are swept away in a smile that has yours growing further, and you giggle shamelessly, fresh from sleep and enjoying every second of this experience.

From beside the bed G smiles, and Papyrus pulls you into a good morning hug that involves a great deal of cheek nuzzling.

You can definitely get used to this.

 

The smell of last night’s burning dinner is long gone, G’s swift opening of every window available at the time sweeping the initial smoke away, and the general presence of your monster friends covering up the under lying musk.

When you leave G’s bedroom with the skeleton family behind you and AD underfoot, scents of breakfast hit you in a wave, and with it a chorus of good mornings.

Undyne and Toriel have commandeered the kitchen, the mother monster watching her eager companion every step of the way as they’ve managed to conjure up a load of food. Waffles, pancakes, french toast, eggs, and oatmeal with tiny dinosaur eggs that makes Papyrus squee in pure delight from his wheelchair when he sees them.

G’s dining room is tiny, barely enough for the load of grub that’s been laid out on top, and it’s surrounded by a plethora of mismatched chairs. With all the people here visiting, Toriel and Undyne have made pit stops at their separate houses for more seats.

Much to your surprise it isn’t just the Doctor, Toriel, Frisk, and Undyne that are here: BP is sitting at the table with his head leaning on the shoulder of his Mate. Fred parts himself from a conversation with the queen and jumps up from where he is as soon as you appear, swooping over to you to take you in a one armed hug that’s both startling but totally not unwelcome.

“Jones, saving the day, as per the norm I see,” he winks, glancing at Gaster, and you at once feel yourself become sheepish. He shakes his head at your attempt at arguing against this. “The evidence is all here! Do you know what makes a hero, Jones? The happiness they help bring to the world.”

From at the table Undyne erupts into a laugh, Papyrus sputtering indignantly about his agility remaining unmatched but Frisk keeps snickering, high fiving Undyne when a webbed hand is presented.

“ _Someone_ doesn’t want chocolate chips in their pancakes, I see,” Toriel scolds them, Frisk’s smile dropping instantly, and Papyrus “nyeh-heh”’s in victory from across the table. It’s remarkable how much he can puff out his chest even with a glob of oatmeal in his nasal cavity.

Frederick appears pleased when you say nothing to dispute his words, and you see his eyes slip down to your charge, nestled in your arms. “When BP found out about what happened, he ran out of the restaurant,” he says, glancing at his Soul Mate, still at the table. You think if it weren't for his fur, BP would be blushing right now, but he settles for looking away, eyes narrowing pointedly in the opposite direction. That happens to be where Frisk is sitting, the kid smirking at his evident disdain for his boyfriend’s topic of conversation.

“He dropped all of the food he was carrying directly on the floor and sprinted from the room!” Fred laughs, and you hear Frisk’s snickering picking up, BP deciding his lap was the best place he was going to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes for the time being. “Don’t let the way he’s been growling make you think he wasn’t nearly in tears, I’ve never seen him so fearful!”

“Are you two _done_ yet?” BP snaps from his seat, his tail twitching in the air from behind it’s back and Frederick laughs again.

“The outward show of rage means he cares. But you would know that just as well,” Frederick gives a charming wink, and you wonder if you imagine the star that glimmers from his eye.

Your roommate blows a raspberry in your direction after Fred returns to his side, and your cross your eyes in response, causing him to wrinkle his face in disgust. Frederick laughs quietly at your exchange and pulls back the closest empty chair at the table for you to claim for yourself.

It’s only the pang in your Soul that causes you to hesitate, noticing that G has also hung back, looking a little lost.

“G?”

G breaks from his reverie, glancing at you, and he tilts his mouth up awkwardly under his good eye. “kinda weird having this many people around.”

It takes you only a moment to comprehend, but you see his family again and understand. How long has it been since he’s had them all together again and in one piece? Without Papyrus around, there’s not a chance it could ever be the same as it was. But now that’s changed, and you know he’s been convinced that it could have never been possible after so long.

It reminds you of your own family. The gradual thinning of a household of four to only one. Sure, it was small. But it was perfect. And with the removal of the most brightest one of you all, your mother, it fell apart.

But now you aren’t alone.

First it was BP, then meeting MK lead to showing up at Toriel’s home. Frisk, G, Alphys...slowly, your world isn’t as small as it once was.

It was daunting at first, having so many people in your life, and knowing that once upon a time, talking to another living person about something so simple and light hearted as a television show or the weather...wasn’t so new. And strange. And amazing. It’s weird, that this would even be possible. But it’s happening.

“It’s great, isn’t it?”

G’s expression shifts to frown, his brown perking up as you give into the pure elation you're currently feeling, and you’re not imagining it when his smile returns that it reaches both of his eyes.

“yeah.”

When you sit down at the table G joins you, taking the chair next to yours, and closest to his brother.

Papyrus points out the return of his apparently favorite food to him at once, the pot of sugary oatmeal nearly empty do to Paps’ efforts alone, and G’s endearing grin is one he only saves for his younger brother.

Room was made to squeeze the two of you in, leaving you between BP and G, followed by Paps, Alph, Undyne, Toriel, Frisk, and Fred in a crude attempt at a circle. The significant size difference between all of you make this impossible, but you all make do with legs pressed against legs, feet knocking together unapologetically under the table, and elbows tossing out the idea of personal bubbles altogether. No one apologizes because no one minds, and it’s impossible not to feel invigorated by it all.

Easy chatter fills the air, words drowned out here and there as someone gets too excited, and bowls pass between hands in an unsynchronized flurry. When Alphys asks you about your health you give a bright affirmative that’s unrivaled by Papyrus’ confirmation of his own: he’s feeling a little stiff, but nothing “plenty of intense and dutiful training” won’t work out of his system.

Frisk eyes Gaster’s container curiously, their reflection fish bowling across the glass, but you swear when they grin in welcome at his Soul that it bobs a little more heavily for a moment when they do.

Toriel has fond eyes for the half of the monster in the glass, a faraway gleam in her eyes when she brings up their former acquaintance. “Gaster was so small when we first met, still wearing his stripes, and always in his parent’s shadow. He was a lot like Mort, always so curious. It was a no wonder that he followed in their footsteps in the end.”

“Tha-that was before he was the royal scientist, before the barrier was ever erected, wasn’t it,” Alphys asks in quick curiosity, her own interest forgoing her usual apprehension around the queen.

“Yes, it was,” Toriel confirms, her voice softening for a beat, following into a pause. Everyone at this point is listening, and you can see Papyrus fidgeting in his seat, his bones nearly clattering with how eager he is to hear more. How much does he know about his own family? That was a very long time ago, after all.

“But Gaster was more like his father, personality wise. I never could imagine Mort getting so excited over anything, even their work. But I never knew them very well.”

“mort?”

“Your grandparent. Not their original name, of course, but one they chose for themselves...as the war ended,” Toriel replies, looking at G, and he understands something you can only guess at, his eyes dropping to the table in quiet contemplation.

Mort, a name that means death. You can’t help but know this was deliberate. And the war? In that context, what exactly happened that their grandparent would choose to do such a thing?

The silence that followed from her answer is interrupted shortly when Papyrus finally bursts out:

“I HAD A GRANDFATHER!” His exclamation follows with a cough that Undyne slaps out of him with a hit on the back, Papyrus’ composure not even faltering, although you can see a pin prick of sweat apear on G’s skull from the crack in his voice. “And another grandparent? I had two grandparents!” His smile is a thousand kilowatts of pure joy as he holds his face in his hands, nearly everyone at the table visibly brightening up at his enthusiasm.

“Three, actually,” Toriel responds, and you didn’t think Papyrus could get anymore excited until he gasps out loud. “All Soul Mates, and friends since childhood.”

“Damn, talk about commitment,” BP mumbles into his hand, Fred nudging him in the side and smirking at him as he averts his eyes.

“Wowie! I never knew our family was so big!”

“That is not to mention...Gaster’s siblings.”

G sits up in is chair, sharing an amazed stare with his brother, before they both look back to the queen.

“Were they a lot alike? Were they all skeletons just like us? I’ve never seen another skeleton before besides my brother!”

“Yeah, Fred mentioned you two kinda just popped out the ground, didn’t ya,” BP remarks idly, screwing his eyes in a way that you know means he’s trying to remember something. Frederick raises an eyebrow at his mate, incredulous, and you think this wasn’t exactly how it was worded. But he seems amused by BP’s way of phrasing it.

“the heart in the jar kind of proves otherwise,” G points a finger at his dad while responding to your best friend, and BP’s fur fluffs up slightly in embarrassment.

“I know that! What I’m talking about is us monsters are pretty damn unique, yeah, but there’s literally only the two of you guys. And I barely even knew about this royal scientist guy in school.”

“Gaster kept much of his attention to the Core after we entered the Underground,” Toriel picks up the conversation. “The capital and Hotland was where he spent most of his time, I believe. Although, he was not a stranger to Snowdin as it was.”

G shifts in his chair next to you, and you turn your head to see what’s up, growing worried when a fog of something saddening clouds your Soul. You want to ask...but it isn’t just the current company keeping you from doing so.

You and G had talked more about your possible Mateship as it is...whatever it is exactly...just last night. But you aren’t exactly aware of how comfortable he would be with you bringing up with you being aware of how he’s feeling increasingly more often.

You hadn’t even talked about that, the fine details of it all. And, thinking about it, you're concerned that it would make him worse...knowing you’re also experiencing all the bad he’s going through.

But G spies your line of sight, and you feel your muscles tense up at his notice.

G looks away, his posture shifts, ever so slightly in your direction.

Hesitates.

Tries again.

His shoulder brushes yours, stays there, and a burst of warmth follows in your Soul that makes you relax at once.

He’s actually deriving comfort from your support! He’s not running away! How can you not smile like an idiot about this? BP can make kissy faces at you all he wants, but that G is asking for help on his own? It’s wonderful!

“Burgerpants is correct,” BP freezes mid pucker and it takes all of your will power not to snort, fueling the warmth in your chest further. “we were the only skeletons in Snowdin, not mentioning our father, of course. _Nyeh_ ,” Papyrus just can’t get enough of knowing that he has a dad. It’s adorable! “But that’s simply because of how we were made!”

This makes sense. Monsters can vary widely in appearance despite their heritage, but if G and and Papyrus literally came from Gaster’s hands, perhaps that played some significant part in determining in how they would come out? Or...was it perhaps it’s more then that? How is it that most monsters reproduce, anyways? Were they a unique case?

And Gaster had three parents? Were they all monsters that all contributed somehow?

“Hey, punk. You look like you’re thinkin’ pretty hard over there,” Undyne speaks up, breaking through your muddled brain and you notice that everyone’s watching you now. “What’s up with that?”

“I-I, uh.” You seriously can’t ask about this at the table, _can you_? In front of Frisk? They probably know more then you do, now that you think about it! A kid! One that’s been around monsters for far longer then you have, but still!

Toriel turns her nose to look at her child’s curious stare, and her ears flicker for a moment, eyes widening. “Oh, my! Well, I suppose we never did get around to having the talk on the matter of creating monster children.”

Oh, thank god.

But then she’s smiling at you and you know you’ve misinterpreted their conversation.

Now you’re even more nervous!

“you haven’t been told about this stuff, have you,” G says next to you. He’s meeting your gaze head on, moving his closest arm to rest on the back of his chair by his wrist as he turns a bit to give you his full attention. “didn’t we have this talk about the souls and the bees last night?”

“H-hey,” you yelp, shoving at his chair without thinking, and G’s smirk grows.

It clicks in your head what he’s doing.

It’s easier this way, focusing on him, rather than on the rest of the room. Your question still comes out a stutter, but you're more relaxed about asking then you could have been otherwise.

Without G. Offering his own shoulder for support in his own way.

“How, how is it that monsters ha-have children,” you peer at your steepled fingers, and then back up at him, his eye light never wavering, grin never fading. “Souls can be used in confrontations for intimate situations. When that happens, is it like with humans…?”

“monster reproduction is a lot less...physical,” G says, and you at once listen attentively, unable to miss the minute hint of blue in his cheekbones because of that. But he turns his eye back to you, and it fades with his explanation. “it can involve intense contact, but the important part of the equation is the soul.

“see, when monsters want to reproduce, they start a confrontation, where everyone involved presents their soul. from there they bond, the souls sort of...become one,” he brings his hands together, and you watch them thoughtfully.

“Like a temporary merging.”

“‘xactly,” his mouth lifts again. “monsters are all about intent. we’re all dust n’ magic. ain’t much between us and the rest of the world but our hearts, metaphorically speaking. sure, we can be hard to hit, let alone hurt, but do it with the intent to kill, and that’ll be it.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“If some ass comes at one of us _wanting_ to actually kill us with some full on, unbeatable rage, when we least expect it, they could take us out in one blow,” Undyne says in his place, frowning deeply, and you’re too mortified by the idea to be the least bit worried about being the center attention.

They would just die? Just like that? Sure you can kill a human instantly if you do it correctly, like with a beheading. But you just need to hate a monster enough to be able to murder one?

“it’s kind of the reason why despite our magic, we didn’t win the war.”

Oh.

That’s why. Despite their universal mastery of magic, the monsters had lost.

You had always wondered, and Gaster said that there were so many other humans compared to monsters, but if all it took was enough of a _desire_ to kill a monster, even a child could accomplish it.

“but hey, it’s like i said,” G brings up a finger, smoothing it across your furrowed brow, and the short contact loosens your tightened muscles with how unexpected it was. “you gotta hit us first.”

“Bonehead’s got it,” Undyne is all teeth, from ear to ear. “We’re damn strong fighters. It’ll take some real effort to touch one of us to begin with!” She pats at one of her finely toned arm muscles, and Papyrus flexes in tandem with her showiness. There’s not exactly a lot of meat on him, but Papyrus _is_ a big guy.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” you agree, but let a small sigh escape you that goes unnoticed. This will definitely be on your mind from here on out, but you’ll have to trust them on that. They’ve gotten this far, after all, and you’ve seen a fierce Undyne. It’s pretty intimidating.

“monsters are all about feelings. intent. we feel pretty deeply, pretty easily, and people’s intentions can have a big affect on us. reproducing is the same way,” G says, bringing back your conversation. “when souls merge, you have to have to want to make a kid with everything you have. from there everyone offers up a part of their magic, and a soul is made.”

“Made?”

“conjured? brought to life? the logistics are complicated,” he shrugs. “everyone has their own story.”

“Like Fuku’s family,” you think out loud. “And what Gaster told me.”

“didn’t know the old man was that interested in souls,” G comments off hand thoughtfully, and you fidget in your chair. “i’m partial to stars being the answer myself.”

You ignore the rise of heat in your face this brings, reasserting what you had said awkwardly while tapping your fingers against Gaster’s glass.

“I mean, he said that he has the ability to see all that is and what was. I think he meant that stars are exactly where Souls came from.”

A sweep of astonishment surrounds the table at once.

“S-seriously? He said that himself, it’s absolutely confirmed,” Alphys jumps up in her chair, her girlfriend smacking the table next to her but not even bringing out a flinch with how excited they both are.

“We were freaking stars? _How cool is that!?_ ”

“That’s phenomenal news,” Toriel grins with her child, Frisk almost a star at the table themselves with how bright their eyes are shining. “The elemental clans will need to be informed! We had always thought it was the case, but that it’s been _seen_ with someone’s own eyes…”

“gaster’s gonna have a lot to say when he finally gets out of that jar,” G blinks owlishly at his dad’s Soul, his expression probably bringing the biggest smile out of you considering how off-kilter it is.

“I knew the Great Papyrus could only have come from something as remarkable as the heavens!”

“always knew you were born for stardom, paps.”

“WA-was that a _pun_?”

You can’t help but the burst of laughter you give from his about-face, Papyrus going from elated to disgusted in a mere second, and both of them look to you, G grinning, and his brother still clearly outraged.

“Aw man, we’re never going to hear the end of this,” BP grumbles, but G’s lame humor couldn’t stop him from meeting his Mate’s eyes when Frederick takes one of his hands in his own.

“guess they weren't kidding when they said you two really _shone_ on stage together.”

Fred has to hold BP back from crawling over the food to grab G in a chokehold, Undyne shouting when her glass topples over into her lap from the rocking of the furniture.

As a towel is conjured and Undyne paps herself dry, complaining the entire time until she seems ready to grab BP this time. Rather than allow the moment to unfold in the direction of your best friend possibly being suplexed out the front door, you move on with your inquires: “S-so Gaster and his siblings were made from their parent’s magic?”

Toriel nods, wiping at her mouth gracefully with a cloth, and you notice that, for the most part, the meal is basically over. You had been so distracted, you’d completely forgotten about breakfast.

“Correct, as all monsters are created,” she says, Undyne settling in her chair after tossing the soiled towel at G, G moving his smirking skull to the side to avoid it with relaxed ease. “The method of carrying the child until they prepared to enter the world formally differs with each individual.”

“I-I uh,” Alphys blushes lightly from behind her round glasses. “M-my parents magic created an egg for me to develop inside until I was fully formed.”

Undyne pecks her girlfriend on the forehead for having the courage to speak up, mood apparently already having changed with Alphys’ shy demeanor and Toriel nods, “Others, as humans do, may carry their child within themselves for a time.”

Frisk taps at her arm gently, and Toriel responds naturally, picking them up and tucking them into her lap, where Frisk sits, content. The gesture softens her features, erasing tension you hadn't noticed had appeared to begin with, but it’s little wonder that a queen should be so adept at hiding her emotions.

“Each of Gaster’s parents contributed a part of themselves, and from those shared experiences, their children were brought into the world.”

“IF-if that were the case and we’ve never met our family…”

Here her eyes shine distantly, and it isn’t difficult to pick up the regret in her visage, existing in the slow blink of her long lashes and the softening of the line of her mouth. “We lost many of our people during the war.”

Papyrus’ previous happiness fades with the growing of the silence at the table, and from within Gaster’s container, his darkened Soul fragment hovers gently.

When a tentative knock sounds at the front door, everyone startles. G doesn’t get up to answer, instead tilting back his chair to wave at the door in a come here gesture.

The door opens, G catching the excitement you can’t help but feel whenever magic is displayed, and Papyrus’ scolding of his “unwavering laziness” only serves to make G’s mouth twitch up.

“Me-Siri?”

Your own smile at their antics falters when you see Fuku leaning through the open doorway, surprise taking over, and G’s shoulders hitch beside you. She’d corrected herself just in time, but there’s no missing the way her eyes jump to G.

“Fuku,” you say, and start to get up, managing to wrangle yourself out of the huddle of bodies at the table with some help from G when he pushes back your chair with one hand. Fuku enters the apartment fully, and you hesitate when you see a great white head poke his way in after her, ears brushing the top most part of the doorway. “GD?”

GD’s bark is loud, but you don’t even wince as he squeezes into the room, meeting you in the living room in a smothering hug.

He smells like cold and fur and _gosh he’s strong_ but it’s perfect. “You’re okay,” you mutter pathetically into his pull-over hoodie, because being told someone is okay is leagues different from seeing the truth in person.

GD whines happily from above you, snuffling your hair with his nose and eliciting a wet laugh from you from the way it tickles.

“ _He’s_ okay,” Fuku says from beside you, sounding remarkably upset, and you step away from GD long enough to see her cover her frown with both hands. “Oh, Siri,” she utters and moves to you in a rush, both arms winding around your neck.

Hugging Fuku is like laying on the hood of a car that’s been under the sun for hours on a chilly. It’s at once wonderful and comforting, but the heat never fades, the warm popping of her fire a gentle hum in your ears.

“I thought you were gone again!”

“Fuku…” you don’t know what to say. Mei obviously meant a lot to Fuku, and she seems to feel so strongly for all of her friends, even the one’s she barely knew. Like Eolande. But you still don’t expect the upset sputtering of her magic, and the way her eyes shine when she steps back to wipe away a fat, magma like tear that rejoins her fire within seconds.

“I’m glad you're okay. Please be careful next time, please,” she pleads gently with her hands still on your arms, and you nod just as she hugs you again.

“Stop with the waterworks and eat some food, nerds!” Undyne shouts from the table, and you glance back as Fuku releases you. Undyne is going for teasing, but even you don’t miss the glint in her eyes Toriel is rubs at her nose with a fond smile, accepting the handkerchief that Frisk hands her. Papyrus is much more open about his emotions, tears literally spilling down his cheeks.

“YOUR-YOur friendship is so beautiful,” he rubs frantically at his cheekbones. Fuku immediately goes to his side when she sees him, hesitating with a glowing blush once she’s actually there.

“P-payrus, are you feeling better since yesterday?”

“I’m feeling marvelous! Thank you for asking, Ms. Fuku!” The tears are long gone as he strikes a pose, Fuku laughing in response.

Alphys and G, on the other hand, are both examining the container you real _ize you just left on the table-!_

Glancing first down at your obviously empty arms, you rejoin them at the table where Alphys has situated herself in your chair to prod at the device. “I-is he okay? I didn’t mean to leave him!”

You hadn’t noticed at all, which is mind boggling considering how attentive your Soul has been with him since he left Papyrus. But Alphys tapping of a claw on the gage at the top answers your question, the meter completely full with a blue, shimmering light.

“looks like your magic did it’s job,” G says, and lo and behold Gaster’s Soul hasn’t crumbled to dust. It floats, as serene as it was previously next to your person, and you can only sigh as the panic leaves you.

“I...I didn’t notice,” you rub at your chest. You had been filling that container the entire time, and never once did you feel anything. No tugging. No...added exhaustion. It was just like with GD, automatic and subtle, something done with barely a thought or need for direction.

The dog monster on your mind sidles up from behind you, peering down at the glass with a wrinkle of a nose, and he yips gently after his assessment, inexplicably rubbing his nose against your cheek in praise.

“I-I think your Soul knows he’ll be okay,” Alphys mentions, and you can't help but notice how excited she’s looking, just peering at the partial Soul of Gaster’s reacting positively to her device. It’s cute, and you can see Undyne grinning over her girl friend’s eagerness. “We-we’ll take it back to my personal lab at home and start testing right away!”

“looks like you’re off watch duty,” G smiles toothily up at you, a short distance despite his sitting position.

“Speaking of leaving,” Toriel begins, and Frisk starts groaning silently right away, you not understanding until Undyne snickers at the display.

“Now, now, human Frisk! Education is a very important part of growing up,” Papyrus says with a cross of his arms, nodding sage-like. “Stick to your studies and you’ll be almost as great as me, someday! Nyeh!”

Fred has to nudge BP to stop his fake gagging in his tracks, but Papyrus fails to notice or be bothered by it. Frisk tries a smile for Paps’ sake, but you can tell they’re still not that enthused.

 _I feel you,_ you think in quiet solidarity. You never did care for going to school so early at that age either...or ever for that matter. _Unlike this guy,_ you remember, and G’s tilts his head at the amused smile you accidentally aim at him.

Rather than explain, you avoid his interest, probably making it worse in the process.

Toriel chuckles after taking their plates to the sink, patting their head, and laying a soft kiss on their scalp.

“Let’s say goodbye.”

As the table is cleared, Toriel declaring that she would have everything packed up for the boys to keep, G scratching at his skull as Toriel waves off his thanks.

“guess you won’t have to worry ‘bout cooking for a while, bro.”

“Nonsense! Now that I’m awake, I have to stretch my culinary muscles! It’s been months since I’ve cooked my famous spaghetti! As soon as we finish these, nothing will hold me back!”

“dunno, paps, looks like it’ll take a while ‘fore we make al dente-t in this haul.”

“WHY?”

“You’re right, G! It’ll take pho-ever for you to finish all of this!”

“YOUR _MAJESTY!_ ”

Papyrus looks positively appalled, his hand flying to his chest as if hurt, and it’s all you can do to hold back the laughter that’s caged behind the fist you have pressed to your mouth. Frisk doesn’t even care, they’re practically dying in their chair, and Undyne might be literally dying, the pain on her face is so strong.

“We’re leaving,” is all she says, getting up from the table at once.

“hey, siiiiri, why’re you so red? dough’t fight the funny.”

“G’s got a real wey with words, doesn’t he?”

“been ingrained in me since birth,” he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head and sending you a wink. “i’m impassatable to resist.”

Now you’re red for an entirely different reason, G dropping his arms and drawing close when you turn your head, ignoring the rumble of his voice when he sing-song’s your name in question.

“Take me with you,” Papyrus moves from the table, both hands on his wheels, and that gets G’s attention. You look over with him, watching Papyrus wheel his way away from the kitchen, and after Undyne and Doctor Alphys at the door.

“c’mon bro, flour breaking my heart!”

“That wasn’t even clever,” Papyrus tries to shout, and manages as much as a normal person would. Undyne has the door, throwing a “later losers!” over her shoulder before she grabs the two chairs she bought and marches out.

“G-goodbye, everyone!” Alphys calls out, and turns to you specifically, “B-bye, Sirius Jones. I’ll see you at the lab?”

“Goodbye, Doctor...” you nod, a tad apprehensive to see her walking out with the container, your eyes straying from her to it and remaining locked there until the wall separates the two of you.

He would be okay, wouldn’t he?

“I’ll see you later, brother,” Papyrus declares sternly, but then does a 180, beaming and waving his arms in your direction. You get the message right away, enjoying the feeling of hugging the tall, happy skeleton, and letting him soothe your buzzing nerves into complacency. “And I’ll see you, new sibling! I’ll parting shall be short, but sorry.”

“Bye, Paps.”

Papyrus wipes away a tear you _think_ is fake, when he releases you, and then smoothly rolls out the door.

G stands sulking next to you, his eyes narrowed marginally even with the joking curve of his mouth he tries to wear when speaking. “think i went too far?”

But you only have to spend a moment’s time beside him, waiting knowingly, before Papyrus’ chair comes right back inside. He looks practically to be in tears, and G is there to hold him in return when Papyrus’ offers up his belated embrace.

You say nothing as the brother’s exchange, but don’t remove yourself, there for G when he backs away.

“think he’ll be okay,” G asks in a mutter once his brother is gone again, and although it’s aimed at the open door way, you answer with full confidence.

“He’s the Great Papyrus,” you say, papping his arm lightly with a curled fist, and G feigns hurt. “It’ll take a lot to keep him out.” The exchange was small, a moment any other friends could share, but it spoke volumes for your repairing relationship.

Still clutching his arm, G breathes out through his nasal cavity. “you’re right,” and the strain falls away from his skull as he grows fond. “my brother’s cool.”

It’s amazing how vulnerable he can become whenever his brothers involved. But it isn’t just Papyrus’ beacon of a personality, warm and comforting as it is. For so long Papyrus was Sans whole world. As G, something like that could never change.

 _Time, magic. I don’t anything could tear them apart._ It’s impossible not to envy that sort of relationship. _Is this how you looked at me, Lulu, whenever I left?_

A soft yipping catches your line of thought, but rather than seeing GD at your side, AD stares up imploringly. You hum in amusement, drawing your hand through the fur atop his head, and he closes his eyes in simple bliss.

“he’s pretty attached to you, ain’t he?”

“I think it’s the food I bought him, really,” you admit but not regretfully. Who can argue against getting a dog's affection? Even if it was gained through bribery? “I’ve always loved dogs…”

“...figured you might be.”

Not this again! “G!”

“-ah, shit,” a flush of revelation crosses his face.

“What?”

“reminds me, uh.” G winces. “gerson called.”

Your jaw drops as horror gradually floods your brain.

_You completely forgot about your job._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone tell my boss that extending my work hours is getting in the way of my writing about ppl boning skeletons plz. ive already asked my tumblr readers, maybe spread the word? have a goodnight, guys! :D


	24. Of Scolding and Support

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my boss didn't get the memo on my dirty habits. two days off! stolen away! it's made this chapter late, but it's again better for it. was also supposed to be longer, but the ending felt right and it's been too long since an update.  
> btw, song inspo. taken from g's song list: "Do It Alone", Sugarcult.

“ _Kya ha ha ha!_ Do you really think I didn’t know about your little predicament?”

A short time after breakfast and you’ve gone to visit Gerson at his shop. G offered a quick trip there, but surprisingly both GD and Fuku asked if they could tag along. Currently all four of you are standing in the center of your work place, public side of the counter, and Gerson is eyeing you up with something akin to a smirk.

“You look pretty good, there,” he comments, lifting his cane and tapping you on the side of a leg. “A little wobbly, but well enough, all things considering.”

Flushing as if having been caught in a lie, guilt clatters around in your sternum. “Who told you?”

“Remember what I said about news flying fast in the world of monsters? I found out maybe an hour after it happened,” he states with a casual shrug, and you meet eyes with G standing by your side as he had been in his home.

You wonder absently if this is going to be the more common ground now, how close he’s sticking with you, but you really don’t mind it. There are still things you need to talk about, it’s only a matter of finding the right time alone.

“That and your sour puss of a friend called me to make sure I knew!”

“BP,” you ask, mouth falling open, and G snickers at the unintended pun. BP actually went out of his way to call her job? But you’re more astonished by the fact that he didn’t bother to tell you before leaving the apartment to get ready for work. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

Why do you bother asking? Of course he wouldn’t. You can hear him shouting “revenge!” in your head as you stand there in the store, BP more than likely laughing into his note pad at work.

_“How’s it feel to be the worried one now, eh, Jones?”_

_That bastard!_

Shaking away the image of his sharp toothed sneer, you decide he’s right. Although your time spent incapacitated was hardly planned, it was one event in a long list of incidents that had occurred lately that had hurt you or nearly killed you in some way. It’s amazing that BP hasn’t had an aneurysm.

Returning your attention to your present company, you say sheepishly but honestly, “I’m sorry that I left you hanging for so long.”

“Pah, nothing about it,” Gerson waves off your apology. “You forget, ‘fore I had you working here I was doin’ everything on my own.” He winks. “Besides guilt never serves a purpose, only the action it should lead to.”

“I’ll do anything,” you quickly answer, and then catch yourself, probably sounding ridiculous. Jumping to help without thinking isn’t making you look any less remorseful. “As soon as I can, I’ll be back to work.”

“Good! I’ve got plenty saved for ya. ‘Fraid while you were gone, the poor storeroom fell into terrible disarrangement,” Gerson’s words taper off into a cackle, but you can only smile, relief renewed at once. Perhaps it was a terrible stereotype, but you’re afraid if your boss had been human being at death’s door wouldn’t have saved you from losing your job. And this is the best one you’ve ever had.

“told ya you shouldn’t have been worried,” G nudges your shoulder with his own. “gerson’s good people, he’s got you covered.”

 _As if you weren't just as worried_ , you roll your eyes playfully, and G’s smile tugs up ever so much, although you know he has no idea as to what you’re thinking. Looking back, he was more uncomfortable about forgetting to tell you in the first place.

_The more time I spend with him, and the more I get to know the guy, the more I’ve come to realize that he’s kind of a big cheese ball._

“That’s not what you were saying when I was chasing you around the Underground, boy, trying to get you to act smart.” The old monster’s snip breaks you out of that thought. This time when Gerson uses his cane it’s a little rough, G picking up his foot and wincing at the contact.

Something tells you he could have dodged that, but goading his former teacher on would probably lead to a harsher punishment.

_And going by the looks of that hammer, he held back._

“Shoulda seen this one,” Gerson looks at you, pointing at your bony friend with one claw, curved with age. “Got a good head on his shoulders and the education to match. Didn’t stop him from tryin’ to use his powers to get to the ceiling!”

“you never stopped me,” G says, actually pretty grumpy for once.

“Cause I knew you would learn,” Gerson grates out, G pressing his chin into his thick turtleneck. “If teachin’ ya won’t help then there’s nothin’ first hand experience won’t solve.”

“Oh my goodness,” Fuku is laughing into her hands from G’s other side, having spoken up for the first time, and her amusement easily provoking you into a smile of your own that you had been fighting to hide. “Was it really so terrible? I don’t recall anyone saying that you were any sort of tyrant!”

“Only with this one and Undyne,” the old monster grumbles in response. “It’s amazing that they found Mates like they did, but your cousin’s sense of integrity would have won wars.”

Silence descends at once, a heavy curtain dropped by an unexpected break of the slimmest of wires. Fuku looks down at the ground, distracted by her own thoughts, G’s eye light weakens, and GD whines pitifully from behind the three of you. But with the heaviness of the atmosphere it’s impossible to ignore that one word from Gerson: cousin.

“You were family,” you ask in a near whisper, not sure if you meant to utter it aloud, but Fuku nods after a moment.

“Yes. You...they were the child to my father’s brother, my cousin by human standards,” she says quietly, only the passing of cars outside on the road interrupting the quiet. “We were from different Circles, but despite how distant they were their father would visit Snowdin sometimes.”

 _That may have been how Mei met Sans,_ you think to yourself, but hold back from saying it out loud. G is unmoving from beside you, but his sockets both haven’t gone dark yet, there’s only a wistfulness there that always comes when the issue of your predecessor comes up.

“Circles? D-do you mean socially…?” A safer question, one that Gerson speaks up for: “Houses, branches, clans, Circles. It varies with different families. Circles are for those that involve monster’s whose physical appearance lends themselves to the elements by default, but since such a thing is hardly consistent among our kind, you can also be connected through family name.

“Most people associate Circles with monsters like Ms. Fuku that resemble fire incarnate. People, being humans, of course as you might expect.”

“Why,” you ask, truly curious, and Gerson’s smile is as bitter-sharp as a knife.

“Ever heard of Dante? Circles meaning circles of hell, and humans sure do love their euphemisms,” he laughs, definitely less mirthful than before, but you can’t exactly blame him. Never in your right mind would you associate Fuku or her father with being _demons_ , but it’s not exactly an uncommon slur for monsters. “Not that we didn’t always have our way of reclaiming such sentiment, mind you. Grillby sure as rained hellfire during the war!”

“That’s what they say they called him,” Fuku says almost to herself, her eyes dropping away again as she weaves her fingers together when she holds her hands close. “Hellfire. But our Circles represent the cycle of life, the rebirth of our Souls. What passes comes again, and what is wounded can be healed in time. In this life, or the next.” She looks up, her eyes rise to yours, and you think it wouldn’t be difficult knowing what’s on her mind then. “Fire burns, and the soil left behind may become more fertile than it ever was.”

“Which returns us to the matter at hand,” Gerson says, eyeing you carefully, and you question silently his implication. “I would ask how the boot fits, but that would be disrespecting your current life.”

This is the first you’ve heard such a thing. Since knowing of Mei, and her connection to G, it’s been on your mind at a near constant. Although it’s been only a day, Fuku had been calling you by their name since the beginning of your acquaintance, and you’re very much aware of your current sense of being.

You have a reincarnated Soul, one that G knew when he was still Sans, that many people knew apparently. You have some sort of healing abilities, but you couldn't help but wonder if it had anything to do with that person you were in your last life.

What was Mei like? Were they friendly? What sort of dreams did they have? Which classes were their favorites in school? Were they happy before they died?

You were someone else once, and it’s very hard not to be reminded of it now.

Seeing the expression on your face, Gerson leans into his staff with both hands, gaze unwavering. “A person’s life inherently must be given the utmost respect. Souls are who we are, but faces change, and our Souls are given a new chance at life. Basing their current selves on everything that once was or what they once were ages past is pointless. You don’t have the memories that they did, nor the experiences. You can’t speak of or for them, you can only work with what you’ve been given, and anyone asking or expecting more than they have right to is a fool.”

Another whine is elicited from GD, and you look up to see the strange sight of his ears drooping and his head lowering. “GD-?”

“He’s right,” Fuku speaks up, and you drop your gaze in time to see Fuku moving to stand in front of you with quick grace. Taking your hands in her own warm, solidified molasses, she peers imploring into your very Soul. “I’m so sorry that I insisted on calling you by their name for so long! Seeing your Soul that day, I never would have thought it would happen. But it was terrible of me to keep comparing you to them.”

“F-Fuku, I don’t mind, really,” you stutter out, face reddening from her unabridged honesty, or perhaps due to how close her flames are, and how so much brighter they flare up when she’s speaking this way. “It never bothered me.”

“What I said goes both ways, Sirius Jones,” Gerson chides, waving his stick in the air and you feel sullen at the scolding, altogether flustered by the emotions bouncing around the room like a ball on a court.

“I’ll be sure to see you more as you from now on,” Fuku goes on, and when she smiles, it’s less harsh than warm. “I may no longer have a cousin, but I want to be your friend.”

Oh no, there they are. Your eyes are stinging. This is downright heartbreaking, you can barely stutter out an affirmative, and she hugs you in earnest for returning her desire.

The warmth only increases when GD bends down and scoops you into a hug, mimicking the scene from weeks ago with BP almost perfectly, and the both of you laugh with the tightness of his embrace.

When he finally sets out down you both stumble lightly, catching one another and managing to find your balance on the floor. “It’s true what they said,” Fuku giggles to GD. “You really are the best at giving hugs.” While that comment floats over your head and doesn’t fail to pique your interest, Fuku turns back to Gerson, a determined gleam in her eye.

“I know Siri cannot work for a few days more, so please, give GD and I a chance to work in their stead.”

“Oh?” Gerson raises a fuzzy brow, but he’s clearly amused, while you’re left sputtering at the offer.

“F-Fuku, you don’t have to, I mean,” you glance at Gerson. “I-I mean, if he really needs the help and it’s up to him but,” but this is your responsibility. Throwing it onto someone else to deal with is hardly something you find agreeable!

“I don’t know, I like her spunk.”

Fuku grins, victorious, and pulls at one sleeve of her shirt, rolling it up as she flexes one arm. “We’ll do our best! Not a single speck would be left uncleaned, mister Gerson!”

AD woofs, his doggy excitement returned full force, and he mimics Fuku’s pose perfectly. Their difference in size is glaring to say the least.

“That’s what my friend Dythalla would say, anyways,” her gusto melts into it’s usual cute demeanor, her round cheeks flushing a dark green, matching the outline of her form.

It’s times like these that you have to remind yourself that Fuku is actually _older_ than you. Normally you would think that this isn’t fair...but you're pretty sure it’s impossible to think anything remotely negative in relation to the elemental.

“looks like they got you beat,” G shrugs, and you frown at him in a near pout. The traitor!

“You’ve got a deal, missy,” Gerson chuckles. “In the meantime, you look after yourself, Jones. No heroics. Don’t need to be hearing about the date for your funeral from Undyne the next time she visits.”

“R-right,” you reply uncomfortably, with a sideways glance away from G when this right away reminds you of your talk from last night, That doesn’t halt the cringe in your chest from happening, but the feeling is mutual.

“Please, Siri,” Fuku utters softly but clearly. “Consider your own well-being, too, okay?”

You can’t answer her at once. Considering what happened, maybe you should be more careful. But there’s already something on your mind that you need to fix. To make right. If it means you will not have to be hurt again, will you really hesitate to act as you are now to answer your friend’s question?

“siri’s not alone,” G speaks up, but when he answers Fuku, his eye is only on you. “i’ve got their back. if something happens, i’ll be there to take the fall.”

A flutter of discontent rises in your Soul at this, an argument already on your lips against this idea. Never being alone again is nothing short of a dream come true, but you’re not about to let anyone suffer for another one of your, admittedly, reckless decisions.

But Fuku replies for you with a shake of her head and a firm clinch of her fists: “You need to be careful, too, G! You know what it’s like to lose someone dear, or to see them hurt. We all do.”

G holds up his hands in surrender, but doesn’t make it known if he plans on following her order or not. “man, you’re as intimidating as your dad can be sometimes, you know,” he states instead, leading Fuku to huff.

“You’ll make Siri worry.”

You pointedly stare at the counter when G’s eye flits to you, blood darkening your skin. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so open that night at the store. You never would have thought that it would get back to G this way.

“you’re right,” G mutters. He’s lowered his eyes to the floor, his arms close to his sides, and his smile having died down to it’s typical placid state.

The irritation swimming in your system leaves you entirely. You aren’t capable of such a thing when you see him like this, regret coating your Soul that comes and goes in waves. Knocking one of your knuckles against his own, you grin through the overcast inside of you both.

“That won’t happen,” you say. “Neither of us will be hurt. As long as we have each other, just as you said.”

G turns his head as you speak, his expression flat lining with a hint of surprise there underneath the surface. It runs into gentle warmth, his eye sockets losing their edge, and his arm pressing into yours, his head tilted down towards yours. His fingers carding gently through your own, barely holding on, G sighs, “how’d i manage to find you, star.”

The gasp this display elicits from Fuku is all that keeps you from fumbling out something incoherent and ridiculous, but you can’t help the heat in your face that could manage the hue of your friends if it were not for her characteristic shades of green.

“You really did make up!”

The excitement in her voice and the way she presses her hands to her face does nothing to calm your flustered state. G saves the day, responding for the two of you: “finally stopped skirting around the subject, took the plunge, and told siri the truth,” he says, palming the vertebrae of his neck with his other hand.

 

As self-conscious as the gesture is you can't help but allow your mouth to drop open for the second time that day when you realize exactly why he went for the wording that he did. No one would pick up on it unless they were with the two of the them the night previous, so that left only you and G to appreciate his subtle humor. Is there no stopping this skeleton? There’s gotta be a whole lineup of judges in his skull holding up signs, ten for ten, and the waggle of his brow that he does just for you lets you know that’s exactly what’s happening.

_This guy..!_

Exasperated or not, it’s nice to hear G cracking jokes while on this subject. It’s leagues better than the alternative. One could say that he’s suppressing his true feelings with jokes, but with the echo of his emotions colliding with your own, you can read that this isn’t the case. There’s hurt there, but there’s also genuine amusement, and something like joy to go with it.

Next to you, G is content.

Your eyes must look moonstruck by now, but no one makes comment on your quiet reaction, Fuku continuing to be pleased as she watches you both.

“I’m glad.”

“Alright, enough of this fluff,” Gerson speaks up. “I have work to do and someone needs to get off their feet so they can return quicker,” he raises an eyebrow at your person, and you get the message, picking up the underlying softness to his tone as he speaks. “Come, Ms. Fuku, Greater Dog. Let’s see who can better handle a broom: a member of the guard, or the tyke of the man who has to clean up after chalk dust right here.”

While G busies himself with ascending from this mortal realm, if his facial reaction is any indicator, Fuku gives you yet another loving hug. “We’ll catch up soon, won’t we?”

“I’d love to,” you say near the place her ear would be had she been human, and Fuku releases you, smile radiating warmth. GD nuzzles into a cheek with all the love a sentient dog person has to give, which is a great deal as anyone would know, and you wonder at the wetness of his eyes. How like his short-lived counterparts is he, after all?

“You too, GD?”

He barks in affirmative, tail kicking up wind, and you graciously, if perhaps self-indulgently, run a hand across the bottom of his chin as you laugh.

Fuku skips after Gerson as he disappears into the back, his voice of good-natured warning heard from where you remain in the front room. “Gotta warn you about those bunnies though, they’re real rascals.”

“I’ve always wondered what it was like to be taught by Gerson,” Fuku comments, looking delighted to just be behind the counter. Meanwhile GD shrinks into his shirt and drawstring pants to fit behind it at all. This doesn’t stop him from shoulder checking the doorway to the store room, but he quickly adjusts.

“ready to skedaddle,” G asks, smile returning, and although you don’t stop from leaving the shop after him, the overhead  bell sounding in your wake as you go, your frown remains.

“I was totally outnumbered in there...did you just say skedaddle?”

“what, this _ske_ leton can’t _ske_ daddle out of here?”

“If you’re as old as your dad, maybe,” you retort in response to his lame attempt at a pun, and the positively disgusted look on his skull sends a cackle of your own into the winter air of the outside world.

“that’s cold, siri,” G says with a rub of his arms, manifested breath coming in puffs.

This cuts off your laugh immediately. “ _G!_ ” But you're still smiling despite yourself. 

“heh,” his own is short but sharp, G turning his skull to look out over the road with a lingering toothy upturn to his mouth. On the other side a shiny new government mail drop box sits, the white butterfly depicted on it’s side gleaming in the sunlight.

With the heavy winter clouds that are normally hanging above it’s a remarkably clear day, perhaps the first one you’ve seen in awhile. It’s chilly, but not bothersome, the old folds of G’s jacket keeping you from shivering. The very one you kept meaning to return, but perhaps you never would at this rate.

“I meant to give this back to you,” you say, lifting your arms and looking down at the material, and G follows your line of sight. “It was my excuse for seeing Papyrus that day.”

“haven’t changed my mind,” G says, and leans into the window of the shop, both of his hands tucked away in his jeans, their holes hidden from sight. “it’ll keep you from catching a cold. n’ you make it look good. better than i ever could.”

You say nothing to this, no matter how much you think otherwise, the blush in your cheeks stops you from properly responding. And it is warm...you will hardly regret using it.

“meanin’ to ask you something,” G starts up again, and your attention sharpens back on the moment between the two of you. “i was thinking about asking to take you somewhere.”

Like with Grillby’s? “Like a date?” You quip before your good sense can stop you, blush returning in vengeance, but G smiles all the more, if not yet exactly reaching his eyes.

“if you’ll let me call it that,” is his tentative reply, and you swallow nervously.

“Um, s-seriously?”

“with you, what else can i be?” You look for the joke in his question, but although you know it wouldn’t be hard to be upset about this, the steady lingering of his gaze says that this time, humor wasn’t his intention. He is being serious.

“Uh,” you stare towards the sidewalk, not trusting yourself to turn into a mess right then and there. Should you? Touching the tips of your fingers to your lips, you physically stop yourself from blurting something inane out while you think. “Where are we going?”

“the underground.”

“We’re allowed to go there?” Ah, nope, did it anyways. Gritting your teeth against the trepidation in your voice for your burst of excitement, you’re no longer avoiding his face. “Do...you want to go there?”

“asgore’s been thinking about sending small groups of the general public down there, one at a time, to get a look at the place,” he says, and you nod to yourself. That’s a good idea, maybe humans can see first hand exactly how small of a space such a large population of people were faced with and become more sympathetic to their cause on the surface. There must be many more humans as interested as you are in the deep. You saw the Underground for what it was in Gaster’s memories, but how much has it changed since then? How much more of it did you not see through his eyes while you were with him?

But as curious as you are, that isn’t your primary concern.

Yours is G. A monster that was locked down there for what _could_ have been his entire life. You can very much accept it if he never wants to go back.

“it’s cool,” he replies, and you watch the drift of his eyes over the roadside. People are coming and going on a normal work day. Snow is pressed against buildings and cleared from the sidewalks with the steady repetition of footfalls long passed, and dirted slush shudders with each car that crosses over the asphalt. A normal winter day in the city on the surface, with the sky stretching on and on above your heads, touching skyscrapers and distant horizons.

“we were stuck with the place, but it was home. gotta lot of fond memories down there, i can’t get rid of it entirely,” G lifts a shoulder, his voice strengthening. “ ‘sides, there are a couple of big differences from now and then.”

“What’s that,” you wonder, his grin relaxed but his eye shining alighting like an ember met with focused breath.

“you’ll be with me, and we can leave whenever we want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: in this au Dante and his predecessors didn't intentionally go for "circles" of hell to allude to fire monsters and their kin. only other folk came along and likened the two to being one in the same out of ignorance as well as general fear mongering.  
> pps. i went back to ch. 22 and changed g's line on being an ass to it's original version. not necessary to read, but it could make this ch funnier. can't decide if i prefer it though...


	25. Of Flowers and Patterns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh forgive the...everything. it's 6am, but there's no way in waterfall that you guys are waiting any longer. edit later, yis

The path up the mountain is small, with just enough room for two horses to ride abreast. It’s discreet, beginning in the deep forests that surround Ebott and blending in with the colors of the rock face. The path is high, climbing upwards long enough that if a normal person were to find it in the days that it was most used, they would be more likely to give up halfway, and turn back then attempt to go any further. Nothing about it gives away it’s purpose as a path leading to a world trapped underground for centuries.

The entrance itself is less subtle. 

Standing before it, G examines your blown open eyes, the way the endless wind pushing from the inside sweeps through your hair and through your clothing. The expression you wear, he thinks, is the one he must have held when he stood with his back to the entrance in the first few seconds that he saw the setting sun. 

There’s a restless energy coming off of you in waves, your fingertips twitch, mouthparts, and G wonders if it’s something distinctly human that would have you drawn to a thing like a gaping, black hole on the side of a mountain. 

“This is it?”

“this is it.”

A moment previous and you saw the sun in the sky. The endless reach of blue over the finite rolling hills of the forest beneath your feet, and the arching backs of other steepled mounds of rock and granite. The light as it caught your eyes was soft, the sadness in your vision, and a flicker that is subtle breeze in his Soul, but possibly a gust of energy in your own. 

He knows by now that you saw it. His step out of the dark with his friends, his brother in his arms. And he knows that's exactly what you envisioned, stepping onto the cliff face for the first time in your own physical shell. You mentioned nothing of the memory, and he’s grateful, comfortable with the silence that speaks volumes all on it’s own.

It’s impossible to hear the bustle of the city from this distance. So still is the landscape, if it were not for the time of day, G could convince himself that time had never progressed from the moment they had left the Underground. But your presence beside him and the changing of the sun in the sky, they’re both a stark reminder that time is moving forward.

In the moment that you turned to the entrance your eyes curved like saucers, and now a laugh more like a exhalation of breath then an exclamation of amusement sparks his curiosity into a tempting wild fire. 

“How could we have missed this,” you ask, eyes turning to him after a distracted beat, and it’s a good question, one he’s eager to reply to.

“passive magic,” G answers, walking the few extra steps to stand next to you, and taking back the space he lent to allow you to accumulate to the experience. It’s one hell of a view up here, a lot to take in, and things are just getting started. “asgore thinks the mages who made the barrier used a spell of deterrence. anyone who ever made it part way up would feel the need to leave. from below if you tried to look at this spot, your attention would go around it.”

“From down there,” you ask, and he understands the surprise you feel, peering towards the city, as far off as it is. “That's really…” 

“the mages who made the barrier were pretty powerful, and there were seven of them,” he shrugs. “n’ with the monsters down below fueling the magic, it could've gone on forever.”

You hair whips in the wind when you turn you chin sharply back towards him, startled by this little drop of information, “Fueling the magic? They were some kind of batteries for the barrier?”

He feels a hum of warmth for the apt comparison, and despite the morbid topic, a grin tugs at his teeth. “‘xactly. human mages are pretty damn powerful, but after all this time, they needed some way of making sure the barrier didn’t fade. all things are imbued with magic, some more then others, and humans are good at taking magic from other stuff, to use for their own purposes.”

“Like witches,” you speak up with a sudden thought, and he gets it right away. Years of studying magic, the people who made the barrier, and methods of breaking it, and G picked up a lot of knowledge on the subject. He’d learned about witches along the way. Witches, sorcerers, all humans wielding magic in their own unique ways. In the end he’d always been more interested in the more theoretical practices, but some tid bits stuck. 

“Witches draw energy from nature. As in crystals, plants, and stuff. And they use their familiars as conduits to strengthen their spells.” A flush of red decorates your face from your interruption, and he can tell you're self-conscious about the input, but as always G grabs onto it eagerly: 

“just like witches. witches are another kind of magic user. you could ask asgore about what they were like back before the barrier, but from what i understand, they were pretty focused with keeping that stuff balanced,” he goes on, happy to have someone to talk more in depth about...well, basically anything. Long talks with a friend about science, magic, history...he misses it. It was something he did with Alph, when they were younger, and, well, Sans was in the picture instead of him. And it was also something Sans did with Gaster, the older monster delighting in his son’s natural inquisitiveness. 

But in this case, when combined with generally how drawn he is to you to begin with, he’s pretty damn sure the vibrating in his Soul means he could go all day doing this with you and be happy. 

_ sans had gaster and alph...but i...i have you. _

G shakes his head, the last thing you need is him getting all weird on you, but the silent tilt of your head that reminds him faintly of his brother threatens to bring all the warm fuzzies back. 

“mages on the other hand, they mostly hired themselves on with the human rulers,” he continues, maybe a little awkwardly, but thankfully you don’t seem to catch on. “had the same abilities, but were really into the taking aspect, and monsters are magic, their souls, and a bit of dust thrown in. we start off using magic right away. the barrier siphoned off of that, and our residual energy in general,” he eyes the entrance, gaping, dark. Ready to swallow anyone whole if they got close enough. “long as the prison had prisoners, it could keep itself standing.”   
“... and Frisk destroyed it,” you say, a touch of wonder there. And something else, something he can’t address while the two of them are alone: skepticism. There’s a lot more that went into bringing down the barrier then a hell of a determined kid, but Asgore, Tori and the others...it’s not his place to go answering questions that don’t just involve him. 

“the way down to the throne room is pretty far,” he speaks up, dropping it for now as he told himself he should, and when he offers a hand, you take it easily. G marvels again at the softness of your skin, and the temptation that flairs up to not let go. 

He’s still adjusting to that. He’s not sure if he’ll ever get used to it.

“I don’t mind walking,” you say to him, but keep holding on. “I know we took the bike up here, but I don’t want you to get too tired, G.”

Him, too tired? As if he’s the one that woke up from a coma the day before, and not you. Hell, you have no idea how much more he’s been sleeping since he met you, and easier too boot. It’s been a breath of fresh air seeing someone else’s memories in his dreams for a change. Not to mention having someone dote on him in Paps’ absence. Now, you’re both apart of his life again.

“you sure,” G asks, keeping that to himself, and you nod silently, but the concern is still evident. “alright, but i warned you. we’ll ‘port out once we get to snowdin, no point in walking all the way back and seein’ the same stuff twice.”

“‘Kay,” you smile, grip on his hand tightening for the brief instance that discomfort bubbles up from your Soul. He wants to tell you he doesn’t mind seeing it all again a second time in a day...makes no difference after twenty-seven years of it, but something tells him that’s exactly why you reacted the way you did just now. 

Where the hell did he manage to find someone this good? He grew up being told that humans were the bad ones, but you…

When you both turn towards the cave, the steps you take together are equally measured, something about your biology and his magic adjusting both of strides into an almost perfect rhythm. Maybe it’s more than that, maybe it’s your Souls. But he promised you a look of the Underground, and that discussion can wait a while longer. It’s selfish, but now that he’s given in, he wants to hold onto you for as long as he can. 

 

The walk is as long as he promised, but the company makes up for it. You tell G about what you saw while viewing the past with Gaster. Of the monsters that squeezed their way into the hollowed out tunnels, bringing children, and the very few belongings that they could manage to along the way. He listens with quiet attention, but you can feel him hanging onto every word. 

How can he do this, you wonder? Climb into the underground and not immediately panic? If it weren’t for the wide set of the walls, you would be pretty unsettled yourself, but G’s presence helps settle any approaching intimidation that the journey might offer. 

The path is also well lit, lights built into the rock that you don’t recall from your previous “visit”. 

“a few of the engineers put um in in case anyone walked this way,” G explains to you when you ask. “they replaced torches a while back, and connected to the core they won’t go out anytime soon.”

“Is it really okay for me to see the Core?” It goes without saying, but if the wrong people got their hands on any part of it, or found some way to duplicated it’s power, it could mean near unlimited energy for cities on the surface...and unlimited wealth.

“a few places in the core are off limits, but that includes nearly everyone but a few people including me, the king, and alph,” G answers you. “they’re pretty dangerous places, and there are traps still left standing since it was built that a majority can’t work their way out of.”

_ Or into _ , you think, recalling how Gaster had said that even he couldn’t access parts of the Core because he lacked the power of teleportation, the very power Mort used to get around his creation.  _ Mort left instructions behind for Gaster on how to get around, it wasn’t until Sans that it could be traversed in the way it was intended. Gaster didn’t want his son exposed to the magic that they were working on inside the Core, but when he was gone, nothing could stop him from looking for what he needed. _

“monsters don’t build traps that kill, but they can keep you around for a long while until help arrives. it was better to keep the paths leading to those places off limits. but if you figured out some way there, i doubt any normal human scientist could understand what’s going on. you guys have been cut off from magic for a while, after all.” 

That makes sense. A person can take all the pictures they want, but if they can’t figure out what they’re seeing, or are incapable of working with it to begin with, then there’s not a lot to worry about.

But…

“humans are pretty stubborn,” G speaks up, echoing Gerson’s earlier sentiment and your thoughts exactly. “we have security keeping an eye on the place, and some monsters still haven’t left. long as you have an escort, things are covered.” 

“Why haven’t they left,” you have to ask. You’d think that everyone would be scrambling to get out of the mountain as soon as they had the chance.

G shrugs. “eh, some people have spent their whole lives down here, and they’ve already got homes set up. plus all-equal law or not, things are still in the process of being settled on the surface.”

Settled, as in safe. The attacks alone that you’ve been apart of are obvious evidence to that, G is right. Why build a home up top when it could be burned down with your family inside?

The All-Equal Law is one sign that things are progressing a tad. It allowed monsters to be recognized as citizens, to own property, attend public schools, vote, and other such rights that should be inherent to everyone on the surface. That doesn’t stop people from finding every way conceivable to make it hard on monsters to do those very things. Segregation is still a serious issue, and that’s not mentioning the blatant murders. 

_ This is why first contact always made me nervous for the other side, and rather for us humans. Because I’m sure of what our response to meeting a new, sentient race would be. _

But this unwillingness to leave also reminds you of your own kind in a sort of good way. There are plenty of old families that refuse to budge off family land because it’s all they’ve ever known. Things are more certain that way, more stable, and if danger comes, at least it’s in familiar territory. 

That’s one thing your two cultures have in common to some extent, but you can never hope to understand what it was like for G’s people. For Undyne’s and Alphys’. Locked in the shadows for so long. 

_ But I can try to. _

The walls of the passage have been smoothed by a thousand years, countless unknown touches of both time and physical contact, and eventually the walls change. You think at first it’s your brain trying to find a pattern in the rock, but the first flower changes your mind.

Countless carvings of various shapes and sizes are drawn into the rock. Flowers, animals, insects, swirls of what could be wind or magic or both weaving between them with vines and the fluttering of frozen wings, or reaching branches. And stars, there are trillions of stars, all around you. Unblinking, lifeless, removed from time. 

It’s beautiful, and Soul wrenching. It tightens your throat, and catches in your lungs, but G says nothing. He keeps leading you in, not heeding the drawings, but not letting go all the same. 

They all lead to a central point, a great, square archway that’s somewhat different from the other carvings. It’s made of straight lines, it’s sides almost resembling columns, and you think this must have been here when Mort started his plan of creating a shelter for the monsters. 

Beyond it is a burst of life. 

The next chamber is distinctly different from the path that lead you here. It’s long, rectangular in shaped, with smooth white walls and a tall ceiling. The floor is checkered gold and a deep, brownish red where you can actually see it, because the remainder is covered with flowers. Bright, yellow flowers, and the grass they are nestled in. There’s next to no walking room that isn’t touched by the greenery, some of which has made it onto the columns that either support the ceiling, or are there simply for aesthetics. Aesthetics come to mind because there are actual windows in the room, inlaid with stained glass. One actually glows with light, prickling with motes of dust, and sunbeams filter from small domes above where foliage isn’t touching. It’s an utterly beautiful scene, but also a perplexing one.

“Aren’t we deep into the mountain by now,” you say, turning to him. “How could there be light here?”

“maaaagic,” G wiggles his bony-fingers at you, and your irate frown has him chuckling. “yeah, but seriously. that and some pretty simple feats of engineering. we’re pretty sure mirrors carry light all the way down from the top. some of them must have broken over time,” he points at one of the windows set into the wall that are completely dark. “the people who designed this place must have wanted to make it more comfortable for whoever was stuck down here for whatever they had in mind. a lot of the old schematics have been lost, and i wanted to make sure that was the case with the windows, but, uh,” he sighs sheepishly, eye lights dancing to a spot near his feet. “agore didn’t want me risking breakin’ a window to check it out.”

_ You big dork _ .

“Are we nearly to the throne room,” you ask, a smile still playing across your lips, and wondering if the change in scenery is any indication.

“this is the place,” G says with a spread of his arms, and you glance around sharply. It’s...not what you expected. It’s a gorgeous room, but it’s not what you would expect a  _ throne _ room to be like. “This is...it’s pretty small?” Small meaning it has enough shoulder room for Asgore and then some, but it’s sizably different than what you had imagined. 

“heh, expectin’ some gargantuan place just for some guy to sit and have people listen’ to him?”

“Well...yeah, actually,” you have to admit, and G looks faintly amused. 

“space is somethin’ you have to be pretty conscientious of down here. if asgore wanted to see his people, he went out and saw um,” G says, golden flowers brushing against the long length of his pant legs when he walks further in. “he moved the chair sometime after leaving, but i think he stops in sometimes to keep these guys alive.”

Their golden color remind you very much of a certain monster you haven’t seen in a few days, and, perhaps ironically, it’s because he’s been spending time with Asgore. 

Maybe it’s because of how much their personalities probably conflict, but Flowey demanded to stay behind rather than meet Papyrus and “get stuck with a bunch of imbeciles”, according to Frisk. Definitely sounded like Flowey. Toriel, ever the responsible, and concerned adult, refused to leave him alone. 

It was with some amazement that you received the news that the king would be playing babysitter to the sentient flower. Rather than be amused by the whole ordeal, Toriel and Frisk were...worried about how that was going. It struck you as odd, but you’d never really been given a chance to talk to Asgore beyond the one near encounter at the theater. 

_ Sometimes I forget that Toriel is royalty _ , you think, questioning faintly where the other throne may be after all this time when you and G leave.

The hall after the throne room is bleak. There are two paths, to your left and right, and the chiseled brick of the stone is a muted gray. G leads you on, taking a right, and making no remark on the other direction. He doesn’t speak when the two of you come upon yet another open arch way, your friend stopping in place before the two of you can enter.

“G?” 

He’s become closed off, silent. When you try to feel for your Soul for any indication of his thoughts, it has nothing to tell you. No echo of anything negative or positive, not until he breathes out. Anxiety skitters through your chest, like a stone kicked while someone cowers out of sight, trying to remain very, very still in an effort to not be seen. 

So when he begins walking again his hand tugs your own when you’re taken off guard by his abrupt movement. All you can do is follow after, anxious yourself now for what lies ahead that it should be affecting him this way.

All of the splendor of the throne room is echoed three fold in the newest chamber.

It’s huge. The floor is spread out in the same checkerboard pattern that pricks at a memory in your mind, but here it's entirely free for the eye to see. The windows make a return along one side, but every single one is larger, and bursting with light, causing the massive, round columns that support it’s ceiling to cast thick pools of inky blackness. It’s with the increase in size that you can make out the patterns on the glass: the royal insignia, a round orb with wings, and three triangles, one inverted, below it.

_ “What does it stand for,” you ask Toriel one night, in front of the fire. She sits in her arm chair, repairing a cascading length of cloth, rich with velvet purple, while the sign itself is threaded into the fabric with white.  _

_ Toriel hums, pausing in her work, the raising of her head causing a glare to dance along her glasses. You’d been curious as to why monsters made of magic like Alphys and Toriel would need glasses, but been afraid of asking incase you somehow offended someone.  _

_ “Truth be told, some of its original significance was never told to the common people,” she says, laughter in her voice, and this comes as some surprise.  _

_ “Why,” you ask, and sit up on the couch so you're not quite as slouching into the armrest., but carefully enough that you don’t disturb Frisk on the other end. The kid is wrapped up in a blanket of their own, barely anything but the top of their messy head showing. Flowey is snuggled up with them, the most vulnerable you’ve ever seen him, and it’s with his face pressed into Frisk’s hair. _

_ For once, he looks like the child everyone had told you he is.  _

_ “It was a sort of secret, between Asgore and it’s designer,” Toriel says. She takes up the cloth, one of it’s great sleeves falling over the side of her lap as she spreads it out so the insignia is in full view. “The wings, and the circle they crown, it is meant to represent a prophecy.” _

_ “A prophecy?” _

_ “Of the coming of an angel, one that would herald the day when monster kind would be set free from the Underground,” she replies, tracing one feather with the tip of a claw, and you both look up together at Frisk, sleeping soundly.  _

_ “It came true,” you say in a mutter, one she pick up easily and nods. _

_ “My child, savior of our people,” the mother speaks in the same voice, but then shakes her head, gently. “The circle, it represents their Soul. A great, encompassing thing. But, it, along with the wings, have a second meaning. One Asgore keeps close to his heart, and few know of to this day.” _

_ “If...if you would rather not tell me, I don’t mind,” you tell her, albeit with some regret. It’s their history to keep, you understand, but you know it’s one you’ll remain curious of for the rest of your days now that it’s been brought up. _

_ “No, it should be told,” she instead says, and anticipation floods your Soul at once for yet another lesson on their history, one that some of their own people know little about, no less. But it’s the firmness in the way she replied that keeps you from becoming overly excited. What is it about this subject that would spark that sort of distance in her eyes? _

_ “The Soul, it also holds the representation of the sun, the largest star in our sky. Long ago before we were locked away, there were two great families. For one a kingdom, and the other an empire. Among the common folk, our kind mingled, but in the ruling hierarchy of each, there existed a significant division  Separate, we were the greatest powers on this side of the world.” _

_ A clock ticks in another room and you slowly digest this. But, “I’ve never…”  _

_ Because of course you haven’t. You’d never heard of the War, either, but it happened. Or of the monsters beneath the earth, or the magic in the air, but it still all exists. Why not this, and why can you not help but remain astonished.  _

_ You’re getting used to this, how life is now. It’s processing, with you, and every other human known. They’re here, your friends, and sometimes with each new day you forget for one impossible second and the next that they exist at all. _

_ “What happened to you?” _

_ You, because it was impossible to miss the “we” Toriel used, and you know that the Dreemurr family was at the head of the march when the monsters entered the Underground. What was the tipping point exactly after all those years of turmoil between the two races? What brought the feared inevitable, the one that forced monsterkind to create a bunker in the mountain, to actually occur? _

_ Toriel sighs, appearing older for one of those rare instances. Her fur shines, she could yet hold the entirety of your skull in one hand, but fairy tales are not incapable of being affected by time.  _

_ “The war, a division between Souls and their beholders. Throne against throne, until the mages of their empire came, and here we are today,” Toriel finishes, looking again at the cloth. “It was once that we held a bright future together, but all was lost.” Her hand moves to lay partially across the upper part of the insignia, a combination of spreading wings, and a single, round star.  _

_ But lying uncovered are the triangles, three shapes, one upside down between it’s companions. _

_ “These,” she sees where your eyes have landed, but does not hide them from sight as she did the remainder. “These, you will have to go to Asgore to know the full story.” _

_ You blink up at her, frowning in confusion, “Do you not know?” _

_ “I know,” she pauses, and tries, again for a smile. “I know. But I think it would be better if he told you. Only he knows the words they deserve now. _

_ “But what I can tell you is that they, like the angel, hold more than one side to them.” _

If only you were more confident in the possibility of that story reaching your ears. Since the night at the theater, you have never seen Asgore again, and then it was from a mere distance. Spending time with Toriel, and perhaps Alphys, seems to be your best chance at meeting the man, but you’re not about to ask either to request his presence for the sake of your curiosity. 

_ I already know so much more about monsterkind then I could ever have dreamed,  _ you admit to yourself, returning your gaze from the window and to the length of the hall.  _ Gerson, Toriel, they’ve all taught me so much. If I’m somehow meant to know, then maybe it will come in time. _

G lets go of your hand, stepping ahead to walk across the hall as you continue to marvel at it’s quiet beauty. Because it is very, very quiet. His steps, as barely weighted as they are, make the slightest sound against the polished marble, and you believe with the utmost certainty that he could make himself absolutely silent if he had a mind to. 

You can hear the beating of your heart in your ears, the air quickening in your lungs, and maybe, if you concentrate, the barest hint of bird song flooding down from the world above. You’re so far from the surface, how could that be possible, if not by some sort of magic?

G stands in contrast to the remainder of the hall. 

This place looks to be something pulled from a story about knights, nobles, and sleeping spells, a place where the hero would go to be knighted, or to beg for their sins to be forgiven. From where G stands a distance away, you can take him all in. His lean frame, with a black, leather jacket hanging from his shoulders. He’s pocketed hands in the deep, blue denim of his pants, and the scuffed, worn leather of his boots. Light floods across the smooth roundness of his skull, bathing him in yellow, while any part untouched gives the same response of the pillars around you, blackening into shadow. 

“this is the judgement hall,” he says in a hush, and yet his voice reaches you and sounding so clear, it’s almost as though he’s never left your side. “someone once stood here. he’d meet anyone who sought out the king and look into their soul. their experiences, their intentions, their strength of will. it was all laid bare.”

“A judge,” you think aloud redundantly, walking across the painted tile to meet him, and you can’t help the dry laugh you utter at a thought that flickers through your mind. G turns his head to meet your wry frown. “It’s terrible,” you begin, finding yourself nearly copying the same slouch he often gives into, but manage to stop yourself in time.“After all this time I’m still stereotyping monsters.You guys, you seem so inclined towards being kind. I never thought you would need someone like that.”

G chuckles mirthlessly in his throat, “you’d be surprised. but, nah it was for a different kind of monster.”

Your brow furrows at what he could mean by that. Different kind of monster? But if they were the only ones trapped down here-.

“You mean humans. Frisk.”

“yep, ‘fraid so,” he sighs roughly. 

“I don’t know the full story, about what happened with Frisk down here,” you say, and go ahead, G making no room to interrupt. “I assumed that they fell and that Toriel rescued them, and that somewhere along the way they met everyone else. And from there, Frisk found a way to break the barrier.

“But, then, where is the monster that judged them,” you have to ask, considering the people you’ve met from the Underground. Alphys was the royal scientist, Undyne the head of the guard, you can’t imagine Toriel doing something like that, but judge doesn’t exactly imply someone malicious. But it’s like you said, you’ve made the assumption that monsters aren’t prone to acts of malice. “Is he someone we know?”

“something like that,” his grin is crooked and worn, and realization snaps into being like a rubber band against skin: “It was you! Sans!” 

G waves away your pointed finger, appearing genuinely more amused now with how quickly you jolted in place. “in the flesh. or, he would be, but he didn’t have-.” Your swat to his shoulder cuts off that terrible pun in a heartbeat, leaving G laughing to move out of your reach. 

The change in the air is noticeable, and you’re grateful that you managed to pull him out of the funk he’d fallen into since coming here. He judged Frisk before the kid met the king? You guess with everything that happened between his kind and yours, you can hardly blame anyone for the precaution. But that's a lot of weight to drop onto someone’s shoulders, whatever the case. It makes sense that they would assign someone who can see Souls to do the job. 

Which brings the thought, how hard is in general to be able to read anyone you meet at a mere glance? How much easier would it or would it not to make you trust someone?

A pressure starts between your eyes, and you’re met with the odd sight of G poking a boney finger into your forehead, not that it hurts. With hands like those you’re pretty sure he knows what he’s capable of if he’s not careful.

“you’re making that face.”

“What face?” 

“you make a face when you’re worried about someone.”

“Faces do that! That’s what they’re for!” You blurt, heat rushing to your cheeks, and he’s laughing all over again. “Don’t-don’t laugh at me, mister-,” you wave at his own skull, prompting a near indignant “what?” from your friend.

“Mister magical play dough person!” 

His expression drops to one of absolute lifelessness and the hall echoes with the sound of your laughter, G’s mingling when he finally gives in once again. 

 

“what the heck do you mean by play dough, huh,” G asks, his magic still popping like a punctured soap bubbles in his chest cavity when the two of your are steadying yourselves. It’s funny, this is probably first time that he’s actually laughed in this room, and stars knows how many time he’s found himself standing in it. But he can’t help himself, you always seem to manage to bring out this side of him, no matter how deeply it’s buried in the other stolen sections of his being. 

“I don’t know,” you’re saying, that mouth of yours turning up at one corner, but the way your eyes are chased away by his attention isn’t the only indicator that you’re feeling embarrassed. “You aren’t a literal human skeleton, but the way you’re able to smile, and move your face-like that!” His brow bone raised somewhere along the way of you explanation, but he’s already understanding what you’re getting at. “You aren’t as soft as a human, but your skull is so, so-.”

“malliable?”

“Exactly!” You reign yourself in with your excited reply, as you did previous when you worked out his position in the hall, or Sans’, he should say. G finds himself wanting to bring that half of your persona back to the surface, it’s one you tend to keep under wraps far too often. As if you’re afraid that you might scare someone away if you’re too much like your true self. 

“least i don’t feel like i’m made of pudding.”

“Pa- _ pudding? _ ”

How the tables have turned, but you’re more red then anything, and that’s a victory in his book any day, “yeah, just as sweet, too,” he grins with a lazy wink, turning tail when you start sputtering in response. “although, i’m thinkin’ you’re sweeter than that,” he muses to himself, knowing from personal experience you can be a lot more damn forgiving then he can be, not to mention the self-sacrificing part of your personality he wishes he could persuade to look the other way. 

Caught up in this dark return of his previous concerns, G shelves it for now. He doesn’t want to ruin the tour he already nearly soured until you stepped in and made everything better. “you ever want to get a closer look, just let me know, starlight,” and he looks over his shoulder to take a peek for the usual reaction this gets out of you. 

Ah, you’re not looking his way. You’re brighter then sin now, but one of your hands have come up to cover your mouth. “you alright,” worry that he’s somehow gone too far piques in his Soul--do you really not like the nickname?--and he goes back to facing you to get a better look, all the while keeping some distance in case you need it.

“ _ Y-yeah!”  _ You nearly shout, and G stands his ground, relaxing only minutely when you manage to look him the eye, for however short of a time that is. “I’m great!”

G reconsiders what he said, but gives in. If something’s up, maybe he can work it out of along the way. Offering a hand, he watches you curiously as you hesitantly take it, and then appear to be examining the tile with the utmost intensity afterwards. 

“know i said we weren't doing any jumping around, but these halls lead to asgore’s home. thought we should give them a wide berth to give the guy some privacy,” he says to you. He’s definitely seen the place, in all the resets that have been thrown at him, he couldn’t help himself sometimes on his search to find an alternative method of helping the kid break the barrier. It’d never lead to anything, so he only ever did it once in a past timeline. Now that the resets are over, as much as he can trust the kid for them to be, he’d rather respect the man’s boundaries. 

You nod, letting out a shaky, “‘K-kay,” leaving G to contemplate the strange flush of heat in your shared connection as he takes the two of you deeper into the Underground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i spy...a tag that's been mysteriously floating in the description, untouched, for some time now.   
> my absence is explained in UTM, but stuff happened, and then a month happened, too? i don't understand how that works


	26. Of Echoes, Feather-light and Fleeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alliiiiteration, groups of three, shades blue,  
> my faaaavorite things, to name, but a few

It’s the strangest thing coming to terms with the fact that you’ve found yourself physically attracted to a skeleton. But, at the same time, it isn’t.

You’ve seen G in many different slants of light: the soft shroud of Toriel’s porch lamp when you stood together before her door that midnight, the bright hallway sconce cutting a perfect rectangle when your bedroom door was opened when he lay across your comforter, the quiet glow of Grillby’s as it hummed with familiar conversation during your first dinner, and the playful shine of a late winter’s morning every day he greeted you for lunch.

This energy both given by the sun and harnessed by man or monster has softened him, sharpened him, lended you a plethora of moments in which you could admire him in every shape and form his body inclines. Lean, narrow, tired, almost always so tired, but when he isn’t, when that wryness weakens to weightlessness and he expresses just how incredible it is when he shines--smile stretching to it’s fullness, to something almost whole, almost, _almost_ \-- it’s more than enough.

He is enough every bit enough. Without skin or fur he is soft. Without muscle or sinew his shoulders broaden, and he is strong. Without strung cords every word he speaks strikes magic, creates sound, and fills your body with envy. To touch, to hold, to run, because G absolutely terrifies you in this way. You’ve never held in yourself such a possessiveness before, to be complete in a way that requires and demands only him, and perhaps it is your Soul whispering sweet nothings but _stars_ are they a wonder to listen to, even as they make you tremble and doubt and worry.

Because he hurt you once. In the artificial clearness of Toriel’s home, he glanced across your arm, he read your Words, his words, and he chose to run first. You know why that is now, you understand why it happened, but it could be the human in you that allows it to continue to smart, to mutter it’s own soliloquy of bitterness.

How could he find you enthralling in the way that you do him? A monster made of magic and dust and power. You, a human, beating with blood, and bile, and saliva. Should he stand under a street side lamp at night he’ll appear nothing short of haunting, but magnificent.

You do the same in your bedroom mirror during any given hour and you’ll look like a cave troll.

Cutting off your inner rant is a sigh and a squeeze of G’s hand in your own. Your friend tilts his chin to meet you eye for eye and, unaware, successfully flutters the wings of thousands of butterflies captive in your stomach.

You drop your eyes to the slick, polished floor of the elevator, the tune one of Mettaton’s three hundred and fifty top hits playing over the speakers and deflating your mood further. One comment, that’s all it took, and you’re reduced to a sullen mess.

_“you ever want to get a closer look, just let me know, starlight.”_

An invitation and the use of that accursed nickname--because you aren’t about to allow yourself to call it a pet name of all things. You don’t think he was remotely aware of the effect that combo had on you if his curious frown meant anything, but it was a two-hit KO if you’ve ever heard one. That he isn’t aware makes it worse. That means the intention isn’t anywhere near his brainspace and you’re making things up as the two of you go.

Aren’t you?

There was that moment in your bedroom, when G was suspended over you with only his arms, and the long length of his legs keeping him in place. His voice had dipped somewhere dangerous, tempting you would dare say and, until AD had wonderfully interrupted, you think he would have kissed you-.

Every follicle on your body jumps when the double doors ding, announcing their opening and your arrival on the appropriate floor. The whole trip may have taken mere seconds, a minute at best, but you’re stuck in a whirlwind of bewilderment.

You’re attracted to a skeleton, you have no arguments to make against that one.

“second floor: stylized steaks, glitter burgers, and the remainder of BP’s patience,” G pipes up above you, and _my god, can the lighting get any more intense?_

It’s your wince that throws you off from laughing at G’s comment, but you know he sees your faint smile, the mirrored expression of exasperation pretty obvious as you stand together in the court.

It’s gaudy as all hell and if there wasn’t a giant fountain of Mettaton spewing water onto the daisy yellow and salmon colored tile it would still scream him. There were a few plants here and there to accent the room, as well as life-sized posters thrown upon the walls featuring some of, apparently, his biggest debuts: “Mettaton and the Order of the Doves”, “To Mtt or Not to Mtt?”, and plenty of others. More than one title makes you squint at how strangely familiar they are to human made films from the Surface, but you suppose after so many years, it may be a little hard to come up with some original source material…

The best part of the room, or perhaps the only good part, was the glass window set into the ceiling, and because of it you are able to see the sides of other buildings pressing close, a dozen separate windows lit with other lives being played out separately from your own.

There are a few monsters actually milling about, all of them adults, including one made out of slime pushing a mop across the floor that G waves to languidly, and who waves back, as well as well someone behind a front desk nearby that wears a crisp looking pant suit. Their station is situated next to a long stretch of hall...and a pair of shiny doors with an “MTT” logo in swirling font above them.

 _Oh, stars, is that BP’s personal hell?_ You grimace at the idea of going anywhere near that horror emporium, but G is on the same wavelength, walking right passed the doors to point out another length of hall branching off from the main room.

“the restaurant where sans used to perform is ‘round the corner,” he says simply, excitement shooting through to your toes as soon as you hear him.

“Can we, please, G,” you have to ask, cupping your hands together as if ready to beg, and there’s no mistaking the sound of his rolling chuckle as he looks you over.

“dunno why you’d wanna see that old place.”

“Ah, well,” you hesitate, glancing away and back again, “A-anything more that I get to learn about you is worth it. Even if, even if you aren’t exactly Sans...he’s apart of you. And that means a lot,” you finish, faintly embarrassed, which ticks up as he draws out a response. You’re worried that when his eyes widen a fraction, and his mouth drops along with their movement, that he may be upset.

The tension in your system clears when a highlight of blue wavers across the space under his eyes, and G turns his head away, lifting a hand to cover his mouth, fingers fanning loosely in an attempt to cover part of his reaction. “Yeah…s’cool.”

Your smile falters, and then bursts wide with the flight of every captive insect in your chest, _Cute! He’s cute!_ G’s eye light glimpses you for but a moment before snapping away again, and you follow mercifully alongside him without comment, but do nothing to hide how giddy you are. He drops his hand, but the blush remains in a dust of color, _Oh, how the tables have turned-!_

“would you look at that,” G speaks up, drawing your attention away from your short lived victory and to the set of doors in front of you. A set of doors paired with a red, velvet rope crossed in front of them, and a sign on one of their glass faces. “looks like we missed our chance.”

_Moved to Higher Places: Closed Indefinitely_

“B-but!” All teasing G aside, you’d honestly wanted to see the place where he used to work! BP’s already mentioned that G worked in the same building that he did, and although you are hardly expecting to see a laboratory a few steps from a burger restaurant, anything new you can discover about your Mate is bound to be interesting!

 _But, alas_ , you huff weakly, thinking that breaking and entering in the Underground is probably not exactly the best way of putting you in the King’s good graces...or with any of your friends, for that matter.

“they can make an exception.”

“Huh?”

You watch as the rope slackens until one side falls to the ground, a click from the other side of the door is heard, and the door creaks open by a fraction. G smirks thinly, pressing a hand against the door and giving it a shove, “if the toaster wants to complain, he knows how to find me.”

Something bitterly sharp pierces your Soul from his end of the tether binding the two of you, shooting a shiver down your spine, but it isn’t only knowing that it’s not meant for you that leads to you being unfrightened. Angry, laughing, dangerously tempted to hurt...nothing seems to give cause for your attraction to him to waver.

If anything, a mood like this only seems to amplify it.

Swallowing thickly, you follow him into the darkness beyond, the door allowing a glimpse of a small fraction of the interior until it closes behind. For those few seconds you saw the deep, rich purple of a rug, a host’s podium beside the entrance standing tall and made from a near black wood, and a square cut table...but that was it.

G’s presence beside you stirs the air, his glowing eye appearing to be like a moon hanging in the shadows, gutted at it’s core. It shifts as he must turn his head, and switch is flicked somewhere else, only the sudden presence of lighting to your right giving away the magic that G has performed.

It’s a stage set into the wall, the hidden bulbs strung in it’s tucked away rafters painting it in yellow, and washing across the room, fading with distance. Chandeliers, tables with finely cut cloth, a thick carpet, and a stage framed with the thick folds of a curtain: it’s a restaurant!

“It’s actually rather lovely,” you mumble, for once impressed, which is in stark difference to your thoughts of the area previous. There’s a faint layer of dust in the air, and it’s completely quiet, you sure that a guess about it being basically abandoned since the monsters made for the Surface will probably be a good one.

“don’t let the ‘bot know that,” G mumbles, and having not let go of your hand, takes you a table near the front of the stage. Pulling out a seat at the front, he angles it until it’s mostly facing the stage itself, and you take his unspoken cue, sitting down shortly after.

“G, what…” you start, but trail off when he steps away, making for the stage, and climbing onto it’s short drop with long-legged ease. Anticipation curls in your stomach as he crosses the fitted panels of it’s floor, making for one side and partially being obscured when he ducks behind the fabric...and emerges with a microphone and it’s stand.

 _He sings?!_ You are not prepared for this! Your hands flutter for purchase until they find the ends of your shirt, grabbing hold and forming into tight fits. Your heart beat has gone sporadic, every single scene from every single Soul Mate-centric romance that’s you’ve greedily consumed sending warning signals ricocheting off the surface of your skull. _He’s not actually-!_ G taps the microphone, loosens it from it’s holder, and takes it in one hand, tucking away his other to stand in rigidly. _He is!_ By the time he opens his teeth, canines glinting, you’re too flustered to question whether all of the anxiety you feel is truly yours or not.

“my little bro has always been pretty wild about being a great chef one day. you should see him in the kitchen, he’s always at the stove cooking up trouble,” he starts, your jaw dropping when it dawns on you what’s going on. “i’ve never been really interested in my health, but he’s constantly sitting me down, presenting some new dish while he goes on about looking fit for the ladies or something,” he lifts his shirt, waving at his very exposed floating ribs. “i can’t bring myself to tell him it all goes right through me.”

It’s impossible to hide your disbelieving laugh, but it’s definitely genuine, if not touched with awe. He was a stand-up comic, G. Or Sans, was, you suppose. But this explains the puns, and you can’t help but think he’s a natural on the stage as his shoulders begin to relax.

“Yeah, he’s always worried about me. don’t get him started on the smoking. “YOU’RE GOING TO RUIN YOUR MAGIC,” he says. “IT’S TERRIBLE, YOU’RE SHORTENING YOUR LIFE, BROTHER!” sorry to break it to you, paps, but i’ve been on death’s door since i was born,” he sweeps a boney hand over his skull, sockets going comical wide, and you're already snorting laughter from his _insanely_ spot on impersonation, tears springing in your eyes. He’s even expanding his chest and squaring his shoulders, throwing off his laid back posture to wonderfully mimic Pap’s brilliant personality.

G winks at you subtly from the stage when he sees you enjoying yourself, the last of the worry hovering near your heart slipping between the cracks beneath his feet, and the show goes on.

He talks about his brother fairly often, but comedy or no, it’s always with the utmost love. He’s not making fun of his brother, only amplifying you impression of how close their relationship really is, and you know if it were a full crowd, given Papyrus’ popularity, more than one person would understand.

That he’s also making fun of himself, emphasizing his existence as a literal walking skeleton, that just makes it magical. He’s working with who he is, and it’s so unique it can’t but be made funnier by that fact.

“had to give paps the birds and the bees talk kinda early. n’ i don’t me the frilly soul stuff us monsters are into,” he makes a motion of tossing his head, accompanied by a flick of his fingers, and you giggle lightly at G’s attempt to pretend that he has hair. But when he recenters his chin he says the next part in the most monotone voice you’ve ever heard in your life.

“no i mean paps found a porno at the dump.”

Giddy horror explodes in your chest at once, jolting your chair as you attempt to hold it in.

“you humans, all those bits, and all that body fluid,” he waves at his crotch none-too-subtly, your mouth snapping closed. “i was pretty damn freaked, as you can imagine,” he snarks sarcastically, and it’s the conversation you had playing in your head earlier that sullies the joke for you a smidgen. He has a point.

“i tried gettin’ up the courage to explain things. that is to lie my ass off and keep him innocent for the rest of his natural life, but paps took the mag in an entirely different direction. “BROTHER, THIS MS. CANDY LANE SAYS SHE ADVOCATES FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE POOR, AND DREAMS OF A WORLD WHERE WE CAN LIVE HAND IN HAND AS EQUALS!””

G sighs, running a hand down his face until it covers his mouth. He peers towards the rafters, positively broken. “kudos to ms. lane, but how do i tell our dad that my little brother’s first hero wasn’t the fluffy bunny everyone thinks they were?”

There’s no hope for you now, you can’t hold in your laughter, and G isn’t showing any signs of showing mercy because the next person he goes after is you.

“my favorite human, they met a pal of mine once, gd…”

It starts with the slobbery kiss from GD at the bar, which leads to inside jokes about the dog guard, to all the puns you’ve managed to pull off. He brings up your poor impersonation of a mountain troll you did while reading to Papyrus one night, stomping at the ground as you held the book in your hands. You didn’t tell G it was because you know how hard he tries when he does it himself, but his stuttering chuckle made the embarrassment worthwhile.  At this point it becomes more anecdotal than a comedy act, you’re not laughing, and blood must have rushed from every other part of your body directly to your cheeks.

You want to sink into your chair, but when it’s you’re the only two people in the room, it’s completely unavoidable.

He recounts when you convinced Undyne that you didn’t think Alphys was terrible for her experiments, and then Alphys herself.

There’s the time you try to tell G about how much of a wonderful brother he is, how much he’s cared for Papyrus, and how you’ve worried for him in turn.

The incident when Grillby’s bar was attacked and when he arrived to see you standing out front with the other humans comes up.

And he talks about how he had visited Toriel on the night you met him at the bus stop and she had told him all about you. She confessed that after meeting someone with a Soul as wonderful as Frisk’s, she had hope that life on the Surface would really be okay after all.

“about humans and monsters, it’s all swapped down here. growing up some kid might ask their parent to spray under the bed or check the closet for humans. “stay out too long and they’ll gobble up your soul, ralph. now eat your peas”,” G points wiggles a finger of warning, and a prick of interest let’s you peek out from behind your held up hands. “thing is, my human always tries to be so contained.”

G’s volume moves to a near hush, and if it weren’t for the microphone or the level of attention you’re giving him, you may have been unable to hear him at all.

“they help people, they risk their life to make sure everyone else is okay. every laugh they make, when they smile...they always tone it down like they might annoy someone if they don’t,” his skull tilts back, voice rising so that although the mic stays level at this chest every word is clearly heard: “but when they _really_ let it out, it’s like the stars are singing, and somehow they think they aren’t one of the most wonderful people on this planet?” G slips the microphone back into it’s holster, leaning into the stand he allows his eye light to slip back into the floor below and center on you, displaying the sheer disbelief swimming in his socket and playing at a corner of his teeth. “i dunno if im allowed to say this, but isn’t that the funniest thing?”

You hear nothing but the settling of word, your friend descending from the light and stepping across the short length of rug to stop before you. He leans down, taking up your upturned hands from where they lay in your lap. You startle minutely, unaware that they had fallen to rest there, and we he holds them, he cups them in each of his own, his eye sockets softly meeting you gaze.

“i’m sorry,” he says, and your throat tightens, a rebuke rising in a rush that stops without release, all because of the sharpness of pupil. Focused, bright, without wryness or worry. “i gave up. but i’ll make up for it.”

“G…” Any denial you could form for his continued guilt about your argument dies on your lips when he brings your hands to his mouth, teeth moving when he speaks next.

“please, give me more time.”

 

Waterfall is beautiful.

It’s an over simplistic way of describing it, but you feel that no matter what words you try to string together, they will always fall short of their desired effect.

In Gaster’s memories the crystallized shined like stars, spiraling across the sprawling ceiling, reflecting in the pools of water as if captured under panes of glass, and gracing the darkness with wonder. The flowers that spring from the dewy are tall, some of the oldest so tall that not a single inch needs to be given to bend over, and mutter into their upturned petals. Speckings of glowing polled kick up like disturbed fireflies if you touch one too abruptly. The grass itself that they grow from is as you remember, cyan bright under the most light, and sprouting from wherever it can.

Dense closer to the cliffsides, the grass spreads out and thins as it approaches the great, wide river of water of the nearest waterfall on this level, it’s waters spilling out into the abyss. From afar, you can see an image in your mind of Sans when he was so, so small. The slightest misstep could have sent him toppling over the edge.

Looking away from the distant edge and from the thought, you seek out your friend, finding G among the flowers as you are, several feet away. When his skull turns to you, he makes a motion with his hand, and you walk to his side.

Save for the crashing of water, silence lingers hear in a veil. Your steps through the pools do nothing to disturb it, and you make it next to him without a word uttered. With the blue of the environment clinging to nearly every exposed bone, G reaches out and taps gently against the flower he’s facing.

_“I met a human today! Everyone told me they were bad. My parents, big bro, Undyne...but Frisk proves they can’t all be bad! Right?”_

Eyebrows rising, you catch G’s eyes, mouthing your guess: _MK?_

He nods, and you smile at your guess. Pushing a hand into your pocket, you pull out your phone, unresponding as G watches you type quickly onto the screen, and you hold it up afterwards: _“Gaster took me here in his memories. The Echo Flowers remember the last conversation they heard?”_

G’s reading of your text is swift, and he’s nodding again. His hand reaches and takes your own, pulling you along as his hands reach out for each new flower.

“ _Mama! Can I ride in a car on the Surface, can I..?”_

_“We’ll finally see the stars! After all these years..!”_

_“It’s just as the prophecy said, oh thank Toriel…”_

_“My Mate is waiting for me. Somewhere, somehow, I”ll find them..!”_

There are so many of them! Flower after flower, holding a recording of a conversation filled with hope and confidence and happiness both tentative and fit to bursting. When G isn’t activating the flowers’ messages, your own hands are finding what they can. You don’t question him when his count falters until he’s walking alongside you as you go, allowing you to lead the way through the fields, but holding onto your hand all the while. There is less of a path where you are now, messages tangled with time and telling little snippets of tales from prior to the break of the barrier. The oldest sound merely like white static, faded with ages, but others have yet to wither away.

They tell of dinners at home, of homework to be done, of what stars are, what they taste like, what they look like, where they could be again and again and again

_“I miss them.”_

G’s grip tightens in your hand, bone pressing against skin until it’s nearly uncomfortable. His name is on your tongue, balancing finely there and ready to escape. His demeanor has shifted  dramatically, the slant of his mouth rigid and the absence of his single disc of sight causes panic to shudder in your chest against the hole that’s suddenly bottomed out in your Soul.

Raising your free hand immediately, you go to hold it, hovering, next to his cheek, but he makes no move to react to the motion. Can he see you? What’s going on? You know this feeling, you _know_ it-.

 _“I miss them,”_ the flower repeats when you grow too close, and it clicks.

You give into the need to fill the void and to fill him, your palm pressing into the curve of his cheek bone, and his name leaving the place where it’s become pressed to your teeth. “G, I’m here.”

A weight stirs the air and settles against your hand, his left placing itself against your right, and there it is, his yellow disc coming from the dark like a coin upturning in water and gleaming.

“i said the same thing when they died,” his confession, smile coming emptily to the surface. “in one of these flowers.”

He…

Sans, small, too short to properly reach a flower without tugging it down, it’s petals so thick they hide away part of his expression when he speaks.

“give them back.”

He said something like that?

His disc dims, attention wavering and your Soul is being dragged down within you, sharing everything that he can’t share himself.

“I’m here,” you repeat, and the weight stirs, he steadies himself ever so much, giving strength to your words. “I’m not them, but I’m not leaving.”

G straightens where he stands, the lead breaking away and staggering you with it’s absence, his phalanges wrap around both of your hands. “you don’t need to be.” A startled, near electric spark flutters down your spine, and throughout your nerve system at his declaration, goosebumps dancing across your arms and along your neck. He breathes out his conviction in a sigh, lids drooping. “but i’m not sans.”

“You don’t need to be,” is there before you can reconsider yourself, but you don’t regret it. Not one bit, not with the way it brightens the magic in his skull to a blaze, barely withheld behind the window of his iris.

He leans in with closing eyes, the exposed arch of his nose brushing yours, his breath fanning out against the tiny hairs of your upper lip, and he is close, close, so very close when he utters your name

“ _siri_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill not leave you guessing,  
> thus for your sake  
> i'll admit,  
> skele nuzzles,  
> boy, they simply take the cake  
> (๑꒪▿꒪)*


	27. Of Hands, Home, and Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A mess, a mess, such a mess! Late, but longer for it. Changed the ending a doooozen times, too.  
> Song inspo: "Can't Help Falling In Love", Ingrid Michaelson, and this image: http://treacherousthoughts.tumblr.com/post/167073868311
> 
> See end of chapter for warnings.

The approach of cold from Waterfall to Snowdin can only be the work of magic. The downy white of frost resemble shawls on the scattering of Echo Flowers near the entrance of the town, as if protecting them from the very cold they were made from rather than do harm. Still, the plants numbers lessen as the two of you drew nearer, your arms instinctively pulling your coat in tighter against the chill as G fell closer to your side. 

He’d not let go of your hand since Waterfall. In fact there seems to be a sort of...contentment about him despite his earlier confession, or perhaps it could be said it is because of it that he’s changed so. Somehow, you think your own must have reached his Soul in ways you could more than hope for, if the manner in which his eyes bore into yours as you stood together in the luminescent waters held any meaning. 

And there was so much there in those eyes of his, full of words that all fit into one soft exhalation of your name between his teeth. 

You briefly catch his gaze as the two of you walk through the parting of pine-like trees that surround and dot the town, heat rising to your cheeks at the heaviness of the yellow disc of his eye and the smile teasing along his chin.

All of it is still there, unhidden, and it frightens you, just a little, what it could mean. 

Caught between wanting to stare into his eyes but again too nervous to hold his gaze for a second longer, you’re reluctantly relieved when the pines part ways for civilization. 

“Snowdin,” the question leaves you with the first appearance of the cozy village, the town coming in the form of a spattering of buildings running parallel to a river of rushing water. 

“home sweet home,” G says looking over the path the two of you are taking, which is little more than a portion of the thick snow pushed to the side rather than existing as a pathway paved by asphalt or stone. “paps n’ i spent a good portion of our lives here.”

There’s only so much you know about the town, never having asked G directly about it with how it reminds him of his brother. Gaster hadn’t taken you here, a majority of his son’s life in Snowdin taking place after the incident that scattered him into the void. The mystery has turned the location into a gift for your unsated curiosity to unwrap with growing fervor, moving your feet faster through the snow, and causing amusement to buzz across your Soul.

“not much to see,” but G is chuckling as he says this, not resisting for an inch as you begin to pull him along, growing closer and closer to the place that made G into someone so uniquely  _ him _ . 

The buildings are quaint in size and style from afar, and positively charming so close in person. Hugging the main road that cuts through the town are a majority of what seems to be it’s homes and businesses, only one other road existing at it’s heart, and leading off towards the river. Made of wooden plants or brickwork, every roof and overhang is capped with white, and near to every window glows with warmth from inside, unseen sources. Lights are abound, strung along glass, reaching through trees, and spreading along snow with each parted curtain and opened door. 

But what really gives Snowdin life is it’s people, and you come very quickly to discover that the pair of you aren’t alone. 

Monsters meander about in various states of dress, from comfy sweaters, to only the fur on their backs, but every one that meets your eye has a greeting prepared. Smiles, claw waves, the occasional wiggle, and G doesn’t go unnoticed either. No one calls out his name, but recognizing for who he is, or who he was, not a Soul fails to send a greeting towards to their fellow monster. Or to you, his human companion. 

It’s almost overwhelming, how often someone says “hello!” or “good evening!” but your grin is fit to bursting, you’re so excited that when G stops, you take a few steps more on accident. 

You raise an eyebrow in question, a tilt of a chin is his answer, and at last you take in the house he’s presented you with.

It’s two stories tall, and thus perhaps one of the largest from what you can tell in the entire village. It’s porch is small, with a wreath hanging under the round window set into its face, a balcony juts out from one side on the right, and to the left two mailboxes stand collecting powder.

It’s the boxes that cause it to all make sense in your head, and from where you stand you spy a short curling of the letter “s” on one side of the left-most box. The remainder of the name has been worn away, and only your knowledge of who once lived here gives you any chance at knowing the only name it could have bore. G nods when he’s got your attention again, smile becoming slightly rueful for the first time since leaving Waterfall, and you fight the urge to hold his hand tighter.

“this is the place. nothin’ but a few boards and some memories, but it worked.”

“Can we,” you ask, but make no move to walk any closer without his permission. 

“nah,” G replies, and shakes his head when you think some of your disappointment surfaces. “after the barrier fell a lot of the monsters that left gave their old homes to anyone who needed them, me included,” he shrugs, shifting in place, and his eyes skim over the face of the house he...Sans...spent so many years growing up in with his younger brother. “i think paps would have preferred it, that we help someone, but after the incident…”

He pauses, growing still. Giving into something small but instinctual you run your thumb across his, as you have in the past, and he blinks, recentering himself in the present. 

“Come on,” you say, not demanding, but being the first to take a step, and moves alongside you. Away from the house, through the drift, his lithe steps match in sync with your smaller pattern. Until you find what you spied down the road. 

There’s a bench under a set of trees off to the side, tucked slightly out of the way of traffic, but not hidden, and it’s there you guide your friend to. It’s strange, taking over the reigns of where to go, but G never fights you leaving of his old home behind. 

Old, not because monsters have been freed and that’s he’s found a new place to rest. But because of those words you let go unsaid,  _ “i had nothing to go home to.” _

Settling down, G leans into the mere inch of space that separated the two of you for the seconds it existed after you both sat, the monster facing your quiet without any comment of his own. You wait, passing off the lead to him once more, and G doesn’t need very long. 

“after gaster went missing asgore didn’t know what to do with us,” he starts, light drifting through the pines, but when he takes your other hand as well, it’s in reassurance that he hasn’t left you behind. “all of those scientists, up and gone. the lab was a mess, everyone was asking questions, n’ we weren’t the only pair of kids that needed looking after. 

“monster communities are pretty used to losing people, with dusting a thing that happens pretty often and how our society works, no one’s hesitant to take in some orphans that need help. nuclear families are more human in concept than monster, and no one’s going to turn out a kid who needs help.

“but me, i wasn’t interested.

“after what happened, they seemed so quick to try n’ close the gap that was left behind. gaster’s ideas dropped by the wayside. boxes were packed. people moved on. just another day for a dusting, i thought,” G scoffs dryly, turning his head to examine the hills and valleys of your knuckles. “i was…” he pauses, turning it over in his skull, but you don’t ask for what he’s trying to find. It’s never that simple. 

“i was everything. angry. upset. pick a feeling and it was there. all that work and nothin’ left behind to scatter for a proper funeral,” he sighs, shoulder pressing into the back of the bench, and G idly examines the distant finite sky without seeing it.

“asgore was thinkin’ about taking us in.”

“ _ Asgore? _ ”

He shrugs one shoulder, eye blinking back to you, and G plainly not understanding it himself. “knew the two were close friends, and grillbz had fuku…” he trails off again, and then abruptly shakes his head. “but he had his hands full, and at that point a new set of faces were becoming a rarity. the population density of the city was climbing fast, no one had time to feed another pair of mouths, and the thing was with everything going on it was easy to slip out of there unnoticed.

“waterfall wasn’t an option, but i already knew snowdin. tiny town, plenty of trees, easy to go unnoticed. the dump’s nearby, so was gerson’s, i had everything planned. me n’ paps, that’s all i wanted, or needed,” he says, as if listing off every step the same way he did when he first conjured the idea. Methodically, with barely any emotion, until it’s over, and a sliver of strain is free to be heard. “i thought.”

_ Unnoticed. _ How old was Sans when Gaster was lost? Ten? Fifteen? Either way with Paps five years his junior, neither could have been much more than children.  _ And Gaster said he changed the more he exposed himself to his magic. Their dad doesn’t look so different now in the void than when Paps was born.  _

G knows what you’re thinking, the question hanging in the air but going unasked and unanswered with anything as simply difficult as words. One look, that’s all you need. 

They were too young. 

 

“i worked and watched paps when i could, but we had friends. took a while for me to give in, but gerson n’ grillbz are stubborn when they wanna be,” G grumbles, rolling his eye with good nature, and he can’t help but let himself lighten up at the thought of those two. Could have been dead and gone if it weren’t for Gaster’s old connections, and Sans knew the two of them well enough pretty early. “we had our own place, or something like it, and i did odd jobs where i could. didn’t start making the big bucks til i gave in and started doing lab work again, and as one of the last people to know a thing or two about gaster’s work, it was easy to fit in.”

G can see it, Sans’ legs pumping through the snow beneath him, him ‘porting every which way til he made it to that shack in the forest. Cobbled together with wood, stone, and any scrap of metal he could he his hands on, it was tiny, but it did it’s job despite Sans’ expertise hardly falling anywhere near the realm of architecture. 

The front door was hardly anything more than a piece of plywood over a poorly cut, square hole, but it was dry on the inside where it mattered. He’d been smiling his ass off when he got the news that he had the job, ‘though going there felt like he was tucking his tail between his legs, and handing his dad’s work over on a silver platter. 

But it meant helping Papyrus, and for all the world that’s the only excuse he needed. 

Paps had been tucked away in their shared bed, a box filled with blankets and torn cushions, listening to the same cassette tape on reset that would fall apart only months later from overuse when he arrived. The kid didn’t know what had Sans in such a flurry of excitement, but he’d laughed and danced right alongside his older brother that morning, the two of them celebrating with chalky chocolate “bought” from one of the places in town. 

It was the last thing he ever stole. The lab job made sure of that.

“fell into it easy, it was like coming home in way, and i thought only paps could do that for me up til then,” he says, catching the curve of your mouth, and the adoration in your eyes that never fails to make his chest ache. Swallowing with stealth, he has to ignore that want to lean in and capture what he did earlier in Waterfall all over again. 

That flutter of evidence that is your life, a subtle exhalation on your lips, from your nose, and, deeper still, released by the rhythmic compression and decompression of your lungs. It wasn’t right for him to breathe it in, to touch your skin to his bone, but it was like as his magic is to him, and as attractive as every bloom of red on your cheeks, and thurm of blood underneath your skin. Attractive as it is exhilarating, intoxicating, grounding, but simultaneously setting him on a high nothing seemed capable of bringing him down from despite how seemingly small a gesture it was that he did. 

He’s never held such a need to be close to someone in the way he wants to be with you before, but what he did in Waterfall felt  _ natural _ . Not learned, but yet somehow known. And lingering after it is this strange urge he can only turn over in his head and consider, reconsider, and consider again with only one definitive conclusion: he doesn’t understand it, but if there’s anything he’s certain of, being close to you is a desire that has only increased in it’s exponentiality as of late.

But you’re watching him with those inquisitive, bright eyes, made brighter by the snow, and he’s content with talking for now as long as it means you’re the one to hear him. 

“hotland to snowdin, there’s a lot of room to traverse,” he goes on, the lapse in conversation barely noticeable, he can only hope, and he’s grateful for your infinite patience with how he’s been since entering the underground. Hell, your patience as it’s existed since  _ meeting _ him. “i worked out the kinks in my ‘porting, but in the meantime there was a lot of work to make up for after what happened, and with the added absence of a royal scientist. but having people like alph around definitely made it easier.”

“The doctor told me you used to work together,” you muse out loud, and he’s amused when this reminds him of the growing camaraderie you have with his old colleague. The two of you were peas in a pod, from totally different walks of life, but falling into a friendship together as easily as Undyne did with Paps. 

“yep,” he replies, giving the “p” a nice pop, and watching for your immediate, and obvious question of how he pulled that number off. Can playdough do that? 

“alph was mad into gaster’s work, he was basically every science geek of the underground’s hero, but the caseload didn’t get any lighter. meant long nights spent late getting back, but the work foot the bill.”

More than once Sans would show up at Grillby’s, heading towards the back to see Paps wrapped up in a blanket, near the newly weaned Fuku, and the two of them sharing a spot by the the fire place. Paps always tried to wait up for his brother, but he’d been high wired since he first opened his eyes to the world, and it was impossible for him to not wear himself out by the time night came knocking. 

Grillby sometimes managed to convince Sans to stay, which was mostly not bothering to wake him up when Sans fell asleep on his text books, sprawled out on the rug by the fire. Sans woke up more than once with a blanket over his shoulders and a silent Grillby making breakfast for the morning. He’d stay without complaint, because it made Paps happy, until it was time for his little brother to go to school. 

Needless to say, his tab with Grillby started long before he wound up drinking at the bar. 

 

“when sans had the cash, he went to the capital, bought the house, and that was that,” G finishes, and you note with some satisfaction that the same easy candor that he had walking into Snowdin has managed to return. 

There are a lot of blanks in his story, but you’re not about to poke and prod the skeleton for everything that there’s been left missing. There’s also the fact that so often he seemed to switch between using “i” and “we” to bringing up Sans instead, but…you’re not sure if G’s aware that he did it at all. 

That you’ve been told this much is deeply satisfying, and you’re not about to ignore the chance at telling him so. 

“Thank you, G,” you say to him, a thrill racing up your spine when it causes his attention to waver just below your eye line. “F-for telling me,” you finish with a hitch, because how could you not with how close he is?

“thank you for listening, starlight,” he answers in rough reply, low and luring, sending your thoughts in a tailspin of wonder when you have to ask yourself, what could be on his mind right now?

The air is thick between the two of you with...something, you’re unsure of what to do with yourself, and fall to autopilot, bringing up his bony hands where they’re cupped in yours, and blowing on them. No spark of reason on whether he may actually be cold or not comes to mind until immediately after, and embarrassment floods your system, hidden thinly by a smile from your person. 

G is laughing again, deep in pitch, and rich in mirth, but entirely lacking of anything mocking or unkind. But it’s G, and you think he must be getting used to your bumbling by now, otherwise you surely would have scared him away by now, right? Mateship, or no.

“cold, star?”

Friendship, or nothing.

You shake your head, and your clothing hides the way the fine hair on your skin begs to stand on end. Despite that, nothing would surprise you if he could see it all the same, that shiver of anticipation crawling down your spine.

This and everything else you are. 

G brings his hands up, yours subsequently going with them, and your skin meets the area above his teeth. Air hums out through his nose, ghosting warm across your fingers, and causing coherency to blur, but your attention to sharpen, focusing on his eyes as they fall to half mast. 

“i’ve got you,” he murmurs, your heart thudding hard with the implication behind what he says. 

_ Stars, do you.  _

 

The forests hanging between Snowdin and the Ruins are as old as time itself. A millenia of containment under the earth, and their black bodies have solidified into rock. They now exist as unbreakable monoliths, reminders of a time when mankind was barely a spark in the eye of evolution. 

Amidst the forest is a great, rock wall, and set into it a door the color of lilac. The great door is framed by pillars, carved into the side of the cavern, which curves up and up into the dark, but on it’s face in lines of white awaits the delta rune. 

G raises his hand, making a gesture with his palm, and the great door creaks open before the two of you, making not a sound save for in the movement of the snow that has long since built up upon it’s exterior. 

Beyond the door is a tunnel of seemingly endless black, and your footsteps echo audibly when the two of you step inside. The door swings shut behind you both, either due to G’s magic, or something else’s, you don’t ask, instead focusing on the dark around you, and more so on the hand clutching your own. 

When it begins to seems as though it might go on forever, G leads you around a turn, and there, several feet down the corridor, a starwell cloaked in light waits. 

“tori wanted to let people use her place for refuge like everyone else, but it’s so close to where the human’s fell, it’d be too dangerous if someone decided to see the underground for themselves.”

Someone, meaning an all too curious human, or several, perhaps, with a possible agenda in mind. You can understand why using her home would be a bad idea, and when the two of you climb the stairs onto the floor up, it’s entirely quiet where you stand.

It’s better lit up here then down below, and looking around it stands out how utterly empty the place is. 

There are no photographs on the wall, or pieces of furniture standing about. What must be a living area is off to one side of the foyer, but the fireplace there has been swept clean. Actually, the entire place is strangely spotless despite it’s obvious abandonment. 

“Does Toriel still come down here?”

“not that i know of, she’s got her hands pretty full with frisk, her job, and dealing with monster-human relations,” G replies, his voice standing out against the backdrop of emptiness the house provides. It’s weird, standing in a place like this you know should be filled with evidence of someone’s life. “but other monsters stop by to keep in standing.”

“That’s nice of them,” you think idly out loud, eyeing the pale gust of your breath in the air wryly. Abandoned houses, not exactly your favorite places to hang around. 

“we’re nearly to the end,” G speaks up, and you’re grateful to walk away from the building, more so when you see the tree that stands outside in the courtyard. It’s much smaller than the one’s in the forest, but the leaves that surround it are a vibrant red, reminding you of the eyes of the mother monster that once lived here. Looking back, you see that the brick home itself is rather cute from the outside, and it’s also the same shade of purple as the doorway further underground...as well as the walls of the ruins that stretch out around the two of you.

Thin ropes of sleeping ivy cling to the cracks and crevices of the decaying site, and beneath your feet, long dead foliage cracks and crumbles. You think the place must be pretty vibrant in the summer, but caught up in the throes of winter as it is, it’s almost spooky. 

G takes you through it all, stepping over rocks and half fallen pillars, pointing out looping designs cut decoratively into what remains. Like the entrance the Underground, the end holds reminders of monsters long since having moved on, flowers, and strange animals caught in the half-faded pictures left in their wake. 

It all truly ends with the opening of a great cavern, not nearly as massive in scale compared to the ceiling of the capital, or the crystal dotted reach of Waterfall...but unlike those locations previous, this one has an opening.

Far, far above, but not too far that light could not reach the distance below, is a great hole, and from it snow filters through in slow, lightly falling flecks. 

It’s beneath the hole that a wide space of white has formed, and G takes you to it’s center with graceful strokes of his long legs. 

“this is where they fell,” he says, eyes angling up, and you follow that path, marveling are how great the space is between the beginning of the fall down, and it’s end. 

“How could they have survived?”

G makes a sound in his throat, and your friend holds out his spare hand, eye sockets drifting down, down, his disc watching a single speck of snow as it centered towards his palm, and fell through the hole waiting there. “frisk’s own special form of magic,” he says, phalanges furling together behind it.

In a heartbeat you’re brought back to a memory of Toriel’s living room, Frisk catching you in the night to talk. Frisk, who can see Souls, who freed the monsters from the Underground, and who asked two things of you: for your help, and for your patience. 

“Frisk told me they can see Souls,” you speak aloud to G then, pulling the monster’s focus to your admission. “That they were the child that fell to the Underground.”

G nods, the surprise you expected from this never coming: “tori told me she spilled the beans. with how close you’ve gotten to all of us, weird it didn’t happen earlier.”

A dry laugh startles from your mouth, and you turn your face away, frowning into the surrounding gloom. “I was pretty oblivious.”

“don’t beat yourself up,” G says, although your embarrassment doesn’t fade right away. “tori did a pretty good job at keeping it under wraps from even her co-workers, and they help teach the kid.”

You aren’t entirely convinced, but decide to let it drop, a more pressing issue at hand pushing you past your awkwardness and urging you to keep speaking. “That wasn’t all, G,” you say, hearing your skepticism as you say it, “Frisk said they can see Souls, they saved the Underground, but they told me that they need  _ my _ help?”

“don’t doubt yourself, star,” G says, the very hand that futilely tried to  catch hold of the specks of snow filtering from above coming up to rest it’s open palm against your cheek. You still at the contact, definitely distracted from your previous doubts. The disc of his eye, a glowing yellow moon shot through the heart with black, burns into your vision. “frisk may be a kid, but they’re a lot better at reading people than most. sight or no. and you, hell,” he chuckles, dusky, and warm, his thumb brushing ever so much against your skin. “you’ve got a lot more to give then you think.”

When you laugh this time it trembles in your throat, the sound shaken by the weight of his lingering touch, and although you have to glance away for any chance of getting ahold of yourself, your reply is without restraint. “You’re one to talk, G.”

 

“two talents, remember,” the skeleton quips, and you huff outright at the statement, knowing exactly what conversation he’s referencing. Your reaction causes your lips to purse, so incredibly human an action in something so small...and honestly kind of distracting. He’s been itching to ask you more about human anatomy for a while, there’s only so much you can learn about human anatomy from texts and internet references, but it’d been kind of hard to bring that up without, well, being creepy about it. 

Removing his hand from the curve of your cheek, where it fit perfectly and could have remained forever, had you allowed it, G cards his fingers through the fall of your hair. Flakes have come to dot it’s follicles like scattered sugar, and it’s strange how small a difference could manage to add so much more brilliance to the sight before his eyes. “lookin’ tired.”

“I’m okay,” you tell him, your facade of grumpiness weakening, but you don’t fight it when he holds both of your hands in his and draws closer. 

“dunno ‘bout you, but a nap is sounding _ pretty _ good right now,” he drawls, and he knows he’s won when your eyes glow with the chance dangling in front of you. 

“You’ll sleep when we get home?”

“might need some incentive-.”

“I’mexhausted, let’sgo,” you throw your arms around his chest, catching the laughter in his rib cage and holding it close, and G eats up the sight of your flushed cheeks. It’s only the pull of the void that stops him from capturing the curve of your lips with his mouth, a need to kiss you in the only way that he is capable strengthening him in ways nothing else has. 

 

The house that G’s bike pulls up to is unfamiliar, but the neighborhood saddles the very edges of the university’s campus, and thus only a short drive from his own apartment. Removing the helmet he lent you, you faintly admire the style of the building. It’s pretty modern, blocky in shape, with plenty of floor to ceiling windows uninterrupted by wooden frames, and the bit of fencing it has around it’s front porch is made of glass. The hedges around its bottom floor are trimmed perfectly, and the lawn is the same so much so that you half expect a “stay off the grass” sign to be tucked away somewhere. 

“Are we visiting someone,” you ask your friend as the two of you walk the short path to the front door, small cylinder lights protruding nearly from the ground next to the walk, and the door itself only having one, small sliver of a window. 

“several someones,” G replies cryptically, but the mystery lasts for all of a few seconds, until the door is flung open and a very excited Papyrus presents himself before your eyes.

“SIBLINGS!” 

The two of you are swept up in a hug that grabs at both of your waists, one of your hands going up to catch yourself as it balances on G’s back, while his own rights him with the steady solidity of Papyrus’ shoulder. Papyrus’ infectious happiness is impossible to shake off as the two of you follow him into the house, no matter how nervous you’ve become in the unknown abode, but that’s dashed when you see the heads that turn your way from the main living area. 

GD is on his feet at once, bounding over to you in brilliant happiness, and it’s a wondrous feeling to be lifted clear off your feet, into the furred arms what has somehow become your biggest fan. His name is both a plea and a laugh on your tongue, but you can’t resist hugging him back for the world. When he sets you down on your feet, keeping you steady as if prepared for you lack of coordination, it’s only then that the turn of his great form reveals once more the dog guard in full. 

Dogamy and Dogaressa, Doggo and LD, and, at least, AD’s blurring mass is present when he skids to a stop next your side. A chorus of delighted barks sound out at yours and G’s appearance, and quick to join the party is none other than Undyne. 

“‘Bout time,” she snarks from the wide, open archway she walks through, your blue-scaled friend carrying in her hands, of all things, a full tea set. “Thought bonehead had let you fall off a waterfall somewhere.”

G’s jaw clicks shut from beside you, cutting off your conjured reply. Hotland had been strangely devoid of railings, despite the dangerously steep, natural bridges that run over it’s lakes of molten fire. The updraft of the heat had only intensified the feeling of weightlessness each crossing presented, but G’s firm hand in yours a the breeze caught your hair had been a welcome weight for your nerves. 

GD growls softly under his breath, tail having gone limp, but Undyne seems completely unaware of the strange response her comment has elicited from her guardsmen. You look between both G and GD, but any further examination is cut off when Papyrus wheels his way over to the couches in the room, GD following suit. G doesn’t budge until you do.

The room is pretty nice, with a flat screen TV on one wall beneath a wooden bannister, two couches forming an L shape in the center atop a rug, one of the couch’s backs facing the other room Undyne had walked from. From the looks of it, it looks to be a dining room of sorts, with a glass table that matches the coffee table in the living room, and several black chairs. 

Next to the TV is a doorway into another area of the house, and directly opposite of the dining room’s arch is a pair of glass, sliding doors, revealing the gray overcast sky of the outside world. 

It would be a strangely formal place for a twosome like Undyne and Alphys, but there are touches of them everywhere: posters on the wall of various television shows, weapons of various shapes and sizes on display racks and tables, and every other surface dotted with a book leaking pages clearly making the place feel more at home. When you sit down on one of the couches, AD lunges at the chance to settle in your lap, and your hands tangle into his fur naturally. GD opts for the cushion next to you, his calm having at last returned, and you smile up at his twinkling eyes. Rather than sit like anyone else in the room, G opts for perching on the armrest that separates you from Papyrus’ stopping place in front of the TV, one of G’s arms bracing against the back of the sofa near your head.

You’re very aware of his presence, the combination of it and that of everyone else in the room causing you to sink blissfully into your seat. 

The calm ripple of conversation washes over you as the dog guard picks up where the left off, apparently reminiscing on a time when Papyrus refused to leave Undyne’s door in the Underground until she accepted him, something that led to their explosive friendship. 

G was right, after your trek through the Underground and returning to the surface the exhaustion is catching up to you. Trapped in a lull of genial conversation spattered with laughter and quiet barking, you allow your eyes to drift shut and listen to them through a haze of warm comfort. 

“Sirius Jones?”

Bleariness swims in your eyes, forcing you to blink until you can see properly. Where is everyone? The room is completely empty, save for you and AD, yawning in your lap. Distantly, you think you can hear Papyrus yelling from outside the front of the house, but where…?

AD springs from your lap, heading for the doorway you have yet to know what leads to, but looking up reveals the doctor looking down from the second floor above the television. 

She waves, “U-up here!”

Standing up slowly, you allow whatever blood that has managed to collect in the rest of your body to rush to your head. When the dizziness passes, retracing AD’s steps is easy, and you find a hallways with tall windows, showing a pool with it’s uncovered water shifting in the breeze outside. There’s a staircase along the far wall, and that leads up to a large loft, Alphys waiting for you beside a table at it’s center.

Hugging the walls of the loft are two messy bookshelves, but besides that you see several more tacked up posters, and a variety of strange machines that are mostly unrecognizable. They’re white and shining, but one of them has a screen, reminding you of Gaster’s former lab in the Underground. 

Lastly is Gaster’s jar, sitting on the metal table, and inside the saved portion of his Soul remains, bobbing as you approach.

“Is he doing okay,” you have to ask, peering over the rim of his jar to get a look at the gauge. It’s mostly full, but some of your magic has definitely been used up in the time you’ve been apart. Considering that it’s been a few hours at least since you last saw him, this is bound to be a good sign, but your knowledge of Soul science is limited enough that you can’t help be concerned. 

“H-he’s been stable since he left you,” Alphys responds, walking over to your side of the table. You notice now the variety of printouts, open books, and folders scattered around him, not a one underneath his jar. Alphys’ has definitely been busy. “I haven’t made a lot of progress since this morning, b-but from what I’ve compared of former Soul occupants of containers like him, he’s reacting the same as they did. I, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about?”

Right, this is new to her, too, at least to some extent. Some of this stuff is up in the air, it’s just a matter of being ready to catch it when it falls. 

“Where is everyone,” you question, distracting both of you away from the current topic. 

“Outside, f-for the most part,” Alphys replies, twiddling at the hems of her sweater. It’s cute, a cream color with flowers embroidered along it’s edges, as well as a matching skirt of black. “Papyrus is with the guard, b-but Undyne and G are talking downstairs.”

“Did something happen?” Usually when those two talk to each other, or about one another, it’s kind of...strained? Thier personaities clash hard core, and unlike with the way such a thing brings the doctor and the captain together like cookies and cream, Undyne and G seem only to argue. 

“I’m not sure, Undyne...Undyne wanted to talk to you guys about your Soul bound.”

That’s not at all what you expected. 

Since waking up, heck, before even that, you haven't had the chance to talk to Alphys about your Mateship with G. Because of his rejection in the park, the topic had basically become taboo, and a lot has happened recently in the time you’ve been conscious.

Between meeting Papyrus again, hearing G’s confession, talking to BP and Gerson, and visiting the Underground, you’ve been busy. It’s amazing you’re not dead on your feet! 

_ It has to be Mei’s magic, that nap couldn’t have lasted long.  _

“I’m guessing that’s not going so well.”

Alphys’ shoulders droop, and she shakes her head: that’s a negative, squad commander. “D-did you hear them?”

“No...I’ve got a bad feeling,” you reply. You thought it was the lingering wryness, perhaps the gray overcast sky, or your worry for Gaster. But your Soul is almost, well, nauseous. You don’t like it, you can only guess at what G’ thinking right now in your place. 

“G told me that he doesn’t want to try what you did with Papyrus,” the doctor speaks up after a period of silence. “Using your magic on his Soul, the effects could be far more severe given how closely they’ve merged.”

“He told me the same thing.”

Her chin lifts up, some of her mood obviously shifting. “What did you two talk about! We know you made up, but G won’t say a thing about what happened, and-!” 

Alphys cuts herself off, your horrified stare probably being the cause.

Hadn’t they been  _ asleep?  _ Did they really do the same thing that they did with your conversation with BP! 

“Doctor!”

“I know-!” Her hands fly up to cover her glasses, smothering her embarrassment between claws and scales. “Undyne and I couldn’t help it! You’ve just been our otp for so long! And, and, andwhenweheardthetwoofyoutalkinginPapyrus’bedroom-!”

“Doctor!” This time your shout is less horrified and more an attempt to stop yourself from feeling worse, and her babbling grinds to a merciful halt. 

“I’m sorry!” Her wail shakes her shoulders from beneath the hold you have on them, and you sigh deeply, not bothering to try to hide the blood flooding your face. 

_ Stars, at this rate I’m going to red for the rest of my life! _

“Don’t, don’t apologize,” you stutter out, releasing her when she dares to take a peek from her safe place. “If, if this will help us figure this out, really...I’ll take whatever you can offer.” 

Alphys nods weakly, dropping her arms altogether. Rather than return to standing, you cross your legs and drop right there onto the floor. Magic Soul powers aside, the topic is far too weighty for you to keep yourself steady right now. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, are you okay?”

Raising a brow at her question, you reply, “My body is kind of worn out…”

“No, I mean. That’s important. But your bond with G, has he really accepted it?”

That’s going to be harder to reply to.

“More or less,” you try, eyes drifting around the room until the settle on AD, who’s begun napping on a pile of books by a door you hadn’t noticed previously. “It isn’t only me, but the issue is personal for G, too. I don’t know what he has said, or what he would like anyone to know but...he recognizes that that there was a part of his Soul that is meant to be with mine.” Your hand raises up, pressing against your sternum, where beneath that ethereal, immortal part of you lingers. “He said our Souls are nothing like one another, that I am not his mate, and he’s afraid separating Sans from Gaster could destroy one of us.” 

Alphys’ face tilts, the light across her glasses moving to reveal the pain touching her eyes. “G-G is right. This is uncharted territory! Never in the history of monster-human relationships and fusing has such a thing happened! For Sans’ mate to die...and to be reborn in you, but, but then for your Words and that connection to only form once he reaches the surface as a new monster? There’s no telling what could occur if you were to try!” 

“When you say connection? You mean when I woke that morning,” you ask, bringing back her attention to you. “When I knew that he had come to the Surface?”

She nods firmly, “And your Words came into existence! Before then, you were still Mates, yes, but since the barrier fell, I’ve formed a hypothesis. 

The certainty that a human is a mate with a monster behind the barrier is there, but the connection that would normally exist between them was blocked by the magic of the barrier. It was that reason why after so long, despite the apparent existence of human-monster pairings, that neither could be aware of one another. Typically this is shown through the sharing of memories in dreams, or that of feelings when conscious once they form a stronger bond, or why human Words to be spoken by their monster mates would not appear until the barrier was no longer a factor!”

She falls quiet for a moment, appearing thoughtful, and you watch something come over her, deepening her focus, and removing her stutter entirely from her vocabulary

“Theoretically, G’s fear of his dying affecting your Words could be unfounded, given that your Soul was meant to be paired with Sans, but…” a claw goes up, recentering her glasses on her nose, and Alphys further delves into what must be her work persona, unaware of the horror growing in your heart as she goes on, now pacing to and fro.

“If your Words did not form until he reached the surface as G, and beginning your bond properly, your match with Sans could have _facilitated_ the bonding, but, you’ve become bonded with G's Soul, as it is, through the attraction of fragments of Sans that exist within! 

"Sundering that bond could have terrible repercussions on your Soul! It could be no different then if your mate had died! This is merely a possibility, but it could very well be likely.

“But, if your Words were to disappear with the extraction of Gaster's half, and the loss of G entirely, your Soul could reform it’s connection with Sans’ once his Soul is in it’s proper state! But then, would you have new Words? Would they reappear at all? 

"And there’s Gaster to consider, a Whole Soul...if he is healed, or brought together into one vessel, would he take with him a part of that bond? Would you in fact create a three-way mateship? Could the rupture of G’s connection with you eliminate your mateship with Sans altogether? If you die, would Sans feel the break at all? 

“And G! His very existence is entirely unique! Would there be some part of him left behind when he disappears? With no body of his own, would one form in it’s place? But that would mean the need for matter to create a new body, and where would that come from? Without the necessary components for a physical shell, would he instead become apart of the void with no natural place for his consciousness to return? Could he cease existing altogether if there's no lingering trace of his Soul as it is remaining? No memory or Dust of his person..?” 

_ “siri?” _

You can’t speak. 

There’s something clogging your throat. Your vision is swimming, and you don’t dare blink, holding your hands over your mouth as you are. A sob. A scream. A complete denial of what will happen, because no matter what it is, it’s only going to hurt.

G’s presence shifts the air, the monster moving away from the top of the stairs, while the other monster in the room, Alphys, lets her mouth hang open. Your name is caught there, within her fangs, but G interrupted before it could be uttered with an exclamation of his own. 

He doesn’t repeat himself at first, only growing closer as quick as his feet can take him. Not slowly, or carefully, because you don’t want that, and he  _ knows _ it. 

But then he’s speaking, soft, murmuring words, and you can’t make them out properly. 

Someone is breathing too loudly, there’s a pain in your throat you can’t let go of, and it weakens your knees into collapsing. G holds you, slowing your descent, and falls to a crouch at your side. Somewhere, Alphys is hovering, but you can’t see her anymore. Your vision is darkening at the edges, drawing in and in, closer, and closer. 

G’s hands go up, encompassing your own, and he pulls them away from your lips, and smooths one palm across his chest. Pressing his punctured hand over your own, his chest rises thickly, and falls just as deep. 

It takes seconds before you know what he’s doing, you can’t begin to guess at first, but then you understand: he’s breathing. In and out for your sake in a rhythmic pattern. You follow it desperately, your sputtering attempt like trying to grasp hold of a moth enraptured with candle light.

But he doesn’t give up, he keeps breathing, breathing, a redundancy done only for your sake.

Until finally, finally you catch a hint of oxygen, and hold onto it for a beat.

Lungs unfurling, and decompressing, unfurling and decompressing, over and over again. There’s pain, but that physical pain fades slowly. 

Sweat is on your skin, but that doesn’t stop G from moving into you, his other hand going up to tangle in your hair and bringing his face into your shoulder, while the other remains, firmly keeping yours in place over his sternum.

_“siri,”_ he mutters your name, _“i’m here,”_ he promises, and a sob can be your only answer, fingers gripping into his sweater, tears staining bone, and Souls fluttering helplessly near one another. 

Unable to stop what they’ve done, and incapable of wanting anything less. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> direct any questions to the comment section! i understand that alphys' rant may have been hard to follow.  
> and don't blame her for getting ahead of herself. she loves her work, but the more she gets into it, the less of a filter her explanations have...
> 
> Warning: Panic attack, homelessness, character death mention


	28. Of Fear and Falling, For Only You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tad late, but as a friend once said in so many words, tomorrow can wait until I've found my rest.

Ever since you can remember, you’ve never minded the chill of the winter.

A bite of cold wind on your cheeks, a shiver of energy that would wake you up each morning, and leave you breathless when the snow would fall heavy on the city. While summer makes you tired, ready to nap, and relax, the winter keeps you wanting to move, while simultaneously begging that you remain still. For just a moment, to take in the trees with their frosted branches, listen to the silence of the your half of the world at rest, and, consequently, louden the sound of your heartbeat in your own ears.

Outside Alphys’ home, you stand by the pool, taking in that reverberating drum beat that trails from your chest, and into the fine bones of your ear. It’s grounding, that sound, coupled with the stagnant sleepiness of the urban environment around you.

G is inside, talking to Alphys right now, along with Undyne. Before you left, the small monster had been a quake with sputtering apologies, shaking at her very core, but all you had been capable of uttering at the time was a feeble, “It’s okay.”

You know she wasn’t thinking of the consequences of what she had been saying until it was over, and you were a mess in G’s arms, but you can’t find it in yourself to be even remotely upset with Alphys over the situation.

It was amazing really, how utterly enthralled she was with the mechanics and possibilities of this discovery, of the singularly unique situation that is your Soul Mateship with G. In her shoes, you think you would have reacted the same way.

But as the one hearing it, the one _living_ it, there’s nothing about it that makes you happy, or hopeful for what’s to come.

_If we go through with this, G could die._

G, as you know him. The monster that exists as a fusion between Sans and WingDings Gaster. As strange as the situation is, perhaps there is a possibility that something more unprecedented, and unexpected could come of this, but what can you let yourself hope for?

That G remains despite the removal of Gaster, but what then of Sans? Would it be no different then taking the life of one monster for the sake of another in either situation?

What if somehow, for some strange, wild reason, both G and Sans exist as separate people? What then of the Soul inside yourself that belonged to Mei, Sans’ Soul Mate, what would it have to say if you wanted to persist in your promise to remain at G’s side?

What if neither live? Or you die? Or your magic fails and nothing changes at all?

No matter what happens, there can’t be a good ending for this, can there?

Sniffing roughly back the threat of snot dripping from your nose, you rub the heel of your hand across one eye, and then the other, willing the moisture away, and to remain absent.

You came outside to feel the cold, to get ahold of yourself. You’re no longer a sobbing pile on the ground, but so much of that is due to G’s intervention.

 _If anyone has to right to throw themselves to the ground and cry, it’s him,_ you think, your throat tight. _But...he’s used to things turning out this way._

Living in the Underground, losing both father, brother, and friend. G’s consistent fatigue becomes more understandable by the day.

And if Frisk’s request as any subtle meaning, you know there is only more to come. A story left untold to your person, the tale of how a child conquered a force of magic so strong, an entire species held up by the energy had not the power to defeat it.

There’s a heavy slide of one of the doors behind you, and the break in your thoughts turns you to peer over your shoulder. Undyne closes the glass door behind her, her expression nothing short of serious. With the thin sweater she’s wearing, accompanied by scarf, and boots, you’re swiftly reminded of the night you learned of Endogeny’s origins.

“Hey, Jones. Taking a breather,” she says, the lack of an inquiry in her voice telling you that she knows she’s spot on in her knowledge. She comes up to stand next to you, her amazonian size reflected humously in the pool with the way it’s squashed like an accordion at your feet.

“I’m sorry about the way I reacted in there,” you speak up, staring over the fence that surrounds the backyard. From here, the natural decline of the land makes it seem like the two of you are higher up then you are. Even after the mountain, you’re very aware of the dip into the horizon. “Alphys is trying to help, but now everytime I think about what could happen, it…”

“Don’t strain yourself, I get what you’re saying. Well, I don’t _get_ it, but-,” Undyne stops herself, sighing through her teeth, but eventually settling her eye back on you. “Back in the Underground, Alphie and I were pretty lucky,” she says, taking your unseeing gaze from the ground. “The place isn’t very big, and although it was crowded, there are only so many of us down there. The way things were, compare it to the amount of humans and whatever up here, the fact we met at all was pretty crazy. And you, heck, the barrier was destroyed and out walks G, shacking up in the same town and everything. Just that happening, hell, Frisk pulling us out of that hole, it’s wild.” Huffing, Undyne scowls the scales of her cheeks darkening to a flush of black, like oil over waters as a dark a blue as a nebula in the void of space.

“Look, I’m still no good at this comforting crap, but think about it! Some eight year old kid solved a problem Asgore couldn’t after stars knows how long. I’m not the type to believe in things like miracles, but… I don’t know, this whole thing, it could surprise ya.”

Undyne isn’t the last person you would expect to comfort you, really. Despite her gruff attitude, rippling pectorals, and menacing teeth, she’s proven from the get-so that she’s a really caring person. With someone like Alphys, who you know only deserves the most patient and loving of Mates, you’ve been reminded of yourself.

Stuttering, awkward, hesitant to try unless given a shove forward. But once Alphys really gets into something, all of that goes away. Undyne’s the perfect person to give someone a shove when she sees that they need it and, sometimes, a bit of a attitude like Undyne’s is the perfect thing a person could have to get going again.

“So stop moping!” The hand that falls onto your back nearly sends you toppling into the water, and her grin is full of encouraging mirth. “Enjoy the bag of bones while he’s around! The tough stuff can wait until things are serious.”

The grin that starts on your face is almost instinctual: “But I’m always-.”

“Finish that sentence and you die.”

Birds scatter from the foliage over the sloping hill side as you laugh echoes into the air, Undyne’s mouth set in the nastiest line while her eye rolls in it’s sockets.

“Repeating the same, crappy joke. Yeah, you guys are perfect for eachother.”

Your chuckle settles in the fine upturn of your mouth, the remaining change to the muscles in your face a nice thing to feel after your near last solid hour of brooding. Subduing yourself somewhat, you tell Undyne, “Thank you. Really.”

Undyne’s eyebrow quirks, her spread of teeth twitch, and you can’t tell if she’s more or less exasperated by this reply then by your precious one. “Yeah, yeah! Turn off the sparklers, will you! A woman can only deal with so much sap in one day!”

“The anime Alphys says she watches with you the most tell me otherwise,” you dare to mutter, smirking impishly, and so, so easily with how you were moments ago. Had to remained alone, you don’t think you could have managed such a feat, given your request to G that he stay behind and try to talk to Alphys.

“ _Peh_ ,” is Undyne’s response, pointedly turning her face away from you this time, and you hold in the laugh this elicits. Calm returns to your shoulders, and the last remaining irritation is the state of your sinuses.

“Ew, how the heck can you deal with that?”

“What, do you not-.” You don’t got any farther. Right. Magic. No nose. Of course Undyne wouldn’t. She looks unimpressed.

“Nope,” Undyne replies, then squares her shoulders. “Just one more thing about how being a monster rocks! Friggin’ cold though,” her preening vanishes. “Can’t go for a swim without taking a trip across the planet so I don’t turn into a nice cream cone.”

“I can’t say I sympathize,” you admit with a sideways glance away from her, but you can clearly hear her outright horror when she nearly yells it in your ear: “ARE YOU SAYING WHAT I THINK YOU ARE?”

“What,” you shrug apologetically, not really feeling it, although you do regret how insulted she appears. “I don’t actually know how to swim-.”

“WHAT THE HELL? How are you not dead!”

“I don’t go in the water! Look,” you toe at the ground, the heat in your face fine retribution of your enjoyment of Undyne’s own embarrassment. “One time when I was younger, my brother told me I nearly drowned. Ever since then, I never learned, and he never once suggested taking me to a body of water after my parents died,” you say, your blush going away in favor of one of your old memories becoming unsubmerged from your past.

Your class in elementary had been all about visiting a waterpark with the rest of the district, and you recall that Aludra had been welcome to attend the event as being your only family. But in a strange turn of events, he told you, you could skip for once. Lulu had been all about letting you relax from time to time, but the way he had frowned at your permission slip the week previous had been the last real sign that your near death experience still bothered him.

He’d been the one to pull you out, apparently, and something about that probably scared him.

_Although, with all the parenting books he kept, he was always a secret worry wart._

It hadn’t bothered you though, staying home was more than welcome.

“You could have learned on your own, y’know.”

“Yeah, but the thing is, it kind of scares me,” you say, seeing your reflection dance in the water...the unsettling feeling of being near a possibly deep side of the pool makes you uncomfortable in a way standing by a cliff never could. That same discomfort was something you had helped would help draw you away from thoughts of the possible loss of G.

“I’ve been in water, unable to touch the bottom. My dad tried to take me through a creek once when we were small, sometime after the incident and a year before my mom died. When she was still well enough to go out into the world, they had liked doing things like that, but,” you rub at your arms, holding yourself. “The second his feet no longer touched the bottom, I got scared. I panicked, nothing about it was okay. We went back to land, Dad let me go, and I never went back into the water after that. I’ve tried again but,” you shake your head. “I can barely manage a toe. Just being next to it like this, I’m don’t like it that much.”

“We’ve got to fix that, pronto!”

“ _What_ ,” your head whips to your side, but it’s too late. There’s pure confidence blazing in that eye of hers and with someone like Undyne...you’re already doomed.

“You heard me, punk!”

Your eyelids fly open when the monster woman swoops down, arms at the ready, and scoops you into a bridal carry, your own hands scrambling to meet around her neck when absolute fear of what could be about to happen breaks like a dam into your gut.

_“Undyne!”_

“Chill out, we aren’t starting now. What do you think I’m going to do, throw you into the freezing water? _Fufufu!”_

“ _Why-!_ ”

“We’ve got to get you used to being around it first, and with me doing the teaching, you’ve gotta learn to trust me!”

Rage explodes in your chest, hot, burning, turning your hands to claws that dig into her shirt, and warping your grimace of fear until you snarl: _“_ **_Let go_ ** _-!”_

 

“ **hey, ‘dyne.** ”

Fight or flight, it rises in stark familiarity like a knife to the back. You’ve change from nervous human to wild cat, but every scale on her neck says turn the hell around, and Undyne’s not about to ignore that with the subtle humming of readying magic in the air.

Spinning around, her eye snaps to the figure in the doorway, G, who’s appeared after the _crack_ , of the glass sliding open, his arm straight and hand still on the metal edge of it’s frame. Miracle the thing didn’t shatter, but it’s black of his sockets that are more of a concern right now.

She’s seen this, at the queen’s house. That same brittle stare, ready to break in favor of clearing her body way across the yard. Back then G was only so real about his threat, but this, this is next level.

Undyne’s heard the rumors, and she recalls everyone of them with him standing there, narrow as a twig just begging to be broken. They say Sans was strong. The kid of a boss monster, kind of impossible to avoid that level of potential, and she’d been yelling at the guy for years to really get up and show her his best.

But Sans. Sans just sat there, yawned. Fell asleep at his post, day after day after day. Undyne figured that the rumors were just that, a bunch of trash.

But this. G, _now._  They’re friends, sure, in the loosest definition of the term. But her muscles coil in eager anticipation of the kind of fight that set of his jaw is promising.

If you weren’t between them, nothing would stop her.

“Lo-.”

Loosen up. That’s what she wanted to say, but G didn’t give her a chance.

There was the jolt in her Soul of magic in use. Every inch of her body failed to react. She stiffened, fell back, and you.

You weren’t there in her arms when she hit the water.

_FUCK!_

Cold roared over her scales, shocking her through and through, Undyne floating down in a star burst of bubbles and disrupted water. More natural than walking, her need to propel herself through the substance, thicker than air, but so easy to push herself through, gave way naturally to the abrupt movement of her legs. Swinging her arms underneath, cutting through the liquid with flared hands, Undyne is breaking the surface in an instant, her time under the water nothing compared to what it took to make her way through it.

A red wave of her hair blocks her vision, Undyne moving it out of the way with a click of her teeth, already spouting off obscenities: _“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”_

Neither you nor G are on the side of the pool by the house. Jerking her head left to right, Undyne hovers in the water, sending out a pulse of energy through the immediate area but getting nothing in response.

 

angerfearangerfeafear

For every emotion a beat of your heart, it’s ricocheting in your chest while your Soul does backflips to right itself, but you can’t even breathe as for the second time in the space of two hours you experience your second panic attack.

It’s nothing like the first, you weren't spitting with anger then, and though this is an echo the wind caterwauling through your ears and past your nose isn’t helping you take in oxygen any easier.

There’s a great swooping in your chest, a mass feeling of disorientation, and it’s not only your Soul that’s spinning on end: you’re _falling_ and the speed of your descent is making reasonable thought impossible.

It’s a flicker of thoughts, of wants, and musts, overwhelming and blinding in proportion. What’s insanely contradictory about it is the one thing that’s keeping you from screaming is the source of it all.

G’s arms are held like weights around your torso, the monster pinned to you as his incredible need to simultaneously protect you, and destroy who started this battle for domination. But the third competitor, the dazzling, pulse scorching fear is threatening to topple them both.

Close to his skull, you yell his name, that single letter catches flight and disappears into the air. It’s difficult to talk and impossible to be heard, but you have to do something because the longer you wait the closer the ground approaches.

It’s freezing in the sky, the wind is tearing at your clothing, and your only hope is snapping your friend out of whatever dark place he’s been propelled into only seconds before. Minutes more, and the both of you could be dead, the last images stained into your mind being the horizon flipping like a coin while G’s eye sputters like a star crashing to earth.

His name escapes you again, entwining with reassurances you don’t feel, yelling threatens to raw your throat but it may as well be a whisper on the wind.

_It’s not working! He can’t hear me! Fuck we’re going to die, fuck, FUCK_

Slamming your drying eyes shut against the vertigo you give entirely up on asking politely and _scream_ for help

  


It’s stopped

 

Everything has stopped.

 

Save for the heart in your chest, the blood under your skin, and the trembling of your Soul it’s all...stopped.

The sky...sits there, leveled properly, the horizon stretching out, out, out across the curving surface of the planet. There’s no whiplash or jarring of bones, no breaking of body, or...or anything. You can’t even move your chin-.

In the moment that occurred to you, it starts to change. The land stirs, ever so much, and with a gradual realization, you see that the two of you are falling again.

Only very, very slowly.

“G?”

You can speak again, your lips shape his name, a rough utterance of noise, and as you tilt your face down to meet his gaze once more, his comes up. The short circuiting of his magic has gone, but his eye is blue, bluer, bluer still than the sky could ever hope to achieve.

He loosens his hold, his fingers releasing from the death grip on your shirt, and splaying his hands across your back. The gradual return to earth picks up, enough to ruffle your hair, but something about it, and the two of you entirely, is incredibly weightless.

“We’re in the sky,” you remarkably dumbly, but your skull is swimming with dizziness, and it’s near impossible to reassert yourself with no ground to stand on.

“How did you-?”

“‘ported,” he replies, the naturally rough texture of his voice made deeper still due to his swirling emotions. You would laugh at how much your own resembles his now, and, honestly, with how bewildered you are you can’t help the light headed amusement that rushes up despite yourself.

“No,” you nearly shout, causing him to blink, “How’d you stop us from falling! We were just-!”

“magic,” G says, the confusion you hear his or your own, you don’t know, but it’s pretty funny written all over his face.

“Of course, it’s magic! You stopped us! You slowed us down! And it didn’t hurt at all and there wasn’t any whiplash or anything!”

“strong...magic?”

“ _G!_ ” Your grip on his shoulders sends the two of you into a head over heels spin, a gasp elicited from your mouth when this happens and the sheer...weightlessness, for lack of a better word, of the situation is astonishing.

You don’t know how often you can use the words wonderful, amazing, spectacular or mind-blowing in one occurrence, but this whole ordeal is severely testing your vocabulary.

G’s laugh, incredible by its own right, dances around the two of you, and you know it must be the result of the awe that’s grabbed hold of your Soul, refusing to let go. But you can’t regret this moment, it simply isn’t possible.

“It-it’s like astronauts in space, with zero gravity- _G_! Can you control gravity?”

G’s grin is inches from your beseeching frown and wide-set eyes, and you _swear_ there’s something mischievous sparking in those sockets of his. “what can i say,” he shrugs with his hands up, only your own hold on him keeping you together. “it’s in the name.”

What does that _mean? Is he joking?_

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation, G,” you quip with a growl in your voice, hating that the only way to communicate is to get on his level, but as this sets off a new round of toothy giggling, you know your Soul is acting the traitor and giving you away. “ _We’re flying!_ ”

G tangles his hands in your shirt anew, pressing his skull against the top of your head, his laughter floating around your mouth in bursts. They may have been warm, but you couldn’t tell, as well as changing the gravity, something about his magic has made the temperature easier to bear. You need to ask him about this, your curiosity demands it, but the way the turning of the sun plays across the shape of his skull is by far more enthralling.

So the two of you descend, the winter sky creating a captivating backdrop to his peals amusement, the partial remains of his fear making laughing too easy, but your own relief for the dangering receding with his pain making it impossible for you to not be grateful.

 

The two of you drift between heaven and earth, G’s magic a constant that keeps the momentum at a steady, downward pace. He breathes in your uttered sigh, your cocktail of euphoria and exasperation, one vastly outdoing the other, enveloping his Soul.

The difference of now compared to that of then, of when he saw you in Undyne’s arms as she dangled you over the waters edge-no, he better not think of it. Not now, when he has a firm hold on the smooth plane of your back. When he moves his thumb, it brushes spine, a faint shiver letting him know that you’re very aware of the gesture, and he wonders what that means.

He thinks he's learning, he’s almost there, and in a way, that’s frightening in it’s own sense. But not nearly as much as it is invigorating.

“let’s go home,” he mutters, near the inch of space under your nose, and in the parting of your eyelids, the glass windows they frame shine with light. You nod, the barest of responses, but touching as you are it cannot be missed.

His magic thrums, different now, and two sets of eyes close against the blackness, reopening when the world reappears.

Soft solidity rises, meeting his spine, his legs, and your body is sprawled length wise against his own. His guesstimate proved correct: he’s managed to land almost perfectly on the couch of his apartment, an inch left between him and the furniture, with the pull of his gravity magic closing the gap like a feather touching down.

Lifting your head from his chest, he takes in the sight of you tucking a stray lock behind an ear, barely making a dent in the wilderness that is your hair, and he’s immensely fond for it.

“We’re at your apartment,” you ask, looking around the dimly lit room that is the living area. Couple with the disheveledness of the both of your clothing, and the state his expression is in, he’s kind of thankful the front door is locked. Stars knows what anyone would think of the situation, he’s only just figuring it out himself.

“don’t mind?” Maybe he should have taken you to Tori’s, that had been where you were crashing until Paps’ woke up.

“No,” you say, eyes falling half mast, and when you bury your face into his covered sternum, G presses the ridge of his nose to the top of your head, arms wrapping closer around your smaller form.

You turn your face, eyes peering into the gloom that hovers around the two of you, and casting the room in the coming shoud of dusk.

“What happened at the pool?”

“a memory.”

“...will you tell me,” you ask in a hush, and he’s ashamed that you might be uncertain of your own question because of him.

“yeah...soon,” his chest decompresses as he lets out the air he pulled in a moment prior, trying hard not to think about the past. “you deserve to know the truth.”

“Thank you.”

When whatever force of nature or circumstance tore the first stars asunder, G thinks that you must have taken with you all of the patience and kindness the singular existence that you shared with Sans must have contained. After the way he’s been, how are you not demanding answers? How do you face his stubbornness with a smile so reassuring it almost gives him hope? Why couldn’t the world have given you to him sooner?

 _to me?_ He closes his eyes, laughing dryly against your hair as the heaviness of sleep threatening to pull both of you under. You may never be his, with Sans making up the better part of his Soul, but G...he’s all yours. From the second he was conceived in the accident to the moment he’s wiped from existence, nothing will change that. He was here first.

_you hear that, sans? this moment, it’s mine._

And as he succumbs to sleep, it’s this knowledge that makes it easier to slip away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sunday update! UTM will have it's turn next time, either this coming Thursday, or the next Sunday as planned. I'm sorry if these chapters seem to arrive slow, but at this point I'm trying to not neglect either of them too much.  
> A reviewer was rather rude to me on my other story, and I don't like to complain to all of you about the attitude of the few, but my life is tumultuous at best. Things happen! I've moved three times this year if that's any indicator but, as promised, this story will never be dropped, and nor will the other. I adore them, and all of you, too much! (*^▽^*)  
> In the meantime, the Sans/R count is reaching 3,000! I'm a dime a dozen, don't wait on me if you don't have to!


	29. Of Wake Up Calls, Caustic and Cruel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning inspo: "Avatar", Acoustic Labs.  
> g and siri's day was supposed to end differently but then!!!!

_The pads of his fingers are thickened and calloused, creating footholds for the wires to catch and snap from  like feet dancing along the precipice of an abyss, jaunting along in the rhythm of the song. Thin and delicate, his fingers belonged to an artist, your mother would often say, holding them between her own while running her soft skin against the roughened knuckles of her only little boy. Your father took those hands, taught him to use them to play, rather than to punch, to break, and Aludra used them to spin the humming tunes of your mother into masterpieces._

_Crouched over his guitar, as is his way, Aludra sits perched on his desk chair, the piece of furniture pulled away to crookedly face the couch near to it. Pressed to the opposite wall of the room, and sprawled across its cushions is G, one arm pillowing his head, and his legs crossed at the ankles, propped up on the rest on the other side._

_It’s not the glow of the room, the strange sketchiness of the lines that dance with the foggy quality of the lightning, or that the two should exist in one place at once that tells you this is a dream. It’s the cigarette in G’s other hand, the one that hovers over the ashtray on the floor, until he bends it up, and takes a long, comfortable drag. Aludra doesn’t halt in his playing, doesn’t insist G go outside and take the smoke with him. Instead he plays and he plays, not looking up as you stand there in the doorway, one hand on it’s frame as you take in the scene before you._

_The edges of every book, of the shelving next to the window, of every slant of furniture, of every hair on your brother’s head, dances to the melody of Aludra’s song._

_Golds, browns, the faded white of the sheer curtains over the window, this image of the world paints a scene of mid-summer, late fall, spring at dusk, or winter caught on a rare, warm day. It’s impossible to tell, but it couldn’t be any other point in time. It doesn’t need to make sense, none of it does, but that’s how dreams work, and why you’ve always loved them for that simple fact._

_You open your mouth, beginning to smile, to ask, “Lulu, since when do we own an ash tray?” But something, someone, somewhere, gets there first._

_A sharp, irritating noise interrupts you, coming from all around you but a single point at once. Is it outside the window? In the next room behind you? You almost turn your head to find it, but stop, because Aludra’s fingers are no longer moving._

_You turn your head again in order to meet the sharpness of his eyes that you know would come as he raises his head in silent irritation, and a white ear flicks, listening, as the beep pierces the atmosphere._

 

Warmth and softness, something brushes your nose, and you open your eyes by a fraction, taking in the experience of someone’s sweater brushing against your cheek. G curses under his breath close to your head, and leans up on his elbow while still lying stretched out at your side. Peering through the dust around your eyes, you lift your chin enough to see his hand go for his pocket, the slender object that is his phone is removed, and what distinctly sounds like a microwave going off increases in volume.

 _Toaster Calling_ reads the screen, accompanied by a default image of a person’s silhouette. G taps the END button, final and red, and shoves it back into his pocket. Without further commenting on the interruption, he takes his formerly occupied arm and pushes it between you and the back of couch, pulling you close to his chest before tangling his hand in your hair. You don’t argue, and the bristle of irritation around your Soul is smoothed down with the brief scratch of his phalanges across your scalp, and the pressing solidity of your mate across the length of your body.

You could remain in this position forever, you think to yourself, utterly convinced by how sinfully relaxed you’ve become. Earlier you had broken down, cried, and then panicked while falling from the skies themselves. You’d fallen into a exhaustion only such a wild concoction of emotions could provide, your body deciding that what it deserves could only be rest. Not only that, but you’ve managed to find it in the arms of someone that wants you, a someone that’s learning to depend on you, and typically your rattled nerves around this someone have been firmly beaten down by your exhaustion and the nap that followed. This sort of nirvana must be something dogs only typically aspire to reach.

It’s weird that cuddling against bone is so damn comfortable, you muse idly. It’s probably pretty out of the blue to note, but although some time has passed, G has never woken to complain about the situation, and you realize something funny: you never have to worry about having a partner that complains about their limbs losing blood in a position like this. There’s simply no end to the perks of being with a monster!

 _Teleportation, gravity defying, a killer sense of style, and a wonderful cuddle buddy, that’d be one hell of a dating profile_ , you think, laughing almost giddily with the lingering throes of sleep clinging to your subconscious.

“what’s so funny,” G questions into your hair, still awake, and voice as thick as a woolen blanket. You clamp your mouth shut, the surprise of having been heard doing nothing to chase away you sudden snickering.

_Enjoys smoking, doing science, and long nights. Message here for a romance that will leave you on cloud nine!_

“ _what,”_ G puts some distance between the two of you in order to get a look at your face, but you’re done for; so much for keeping it in! But he’s smiling, despite how obviously confused he is, and the monster sighs goodnaturedly when you attempt to muffle your giggles within the press of his chest.

This momentary blimp of happiness on your part is broken by, yet again, the shrilling of G’s phone.

The skeleton groans loudly into your hair, honest frustration there that causes your grin to wilt. “What could he want,” you ask him, amusement well and truly gone with the blanketing influence of his souring mood.

G doesn’t answer, sitting up, and his mouth cutting a thin line. You situate yourself with your back to the armrest that your heads had been resting near, G’s still shoed feet planting against the ground as he answers his phone with a growl in his throat: “what do you want, bot’?”

 _What happened between these two?_ Interest piqued, you listen in closely, removing the random the thought of a barefooted G being as rare a sight as Bigfoot himself.

In the silence of the living room, it isn’t hard to pick up on Mettaton’s voice on the other end lilting and indignant: _“You know what I want,”_ and it changes, becoming more careful, and thus difficult to hear. _“I want to talk about him.”_

_“Him” again? Papyrus? Gaster?_

“nothing to it, showtime, i’ve already made up my mind. you’re not telling him a thing.”

 _“That isn’t up to you! Listen, G, I’m offering what you would call an olive branch. I called you first, that has to mean something. Are you home?”_ G stands from the couch, teeth parting undoubtedly to deny his request-. _“Nevermind, I’m already there.”_

A deep thumping resounds from the front door, both you and G turning your heads to look at the slab of wood that’s almost offending to your eyes. Fortunately, your half of the connection is still mostly made up of one part confusion, two parts curiosity, and when you rearrange yourself to take G’s previous sitting position, G is at the door in only a few quick strides.

When he opens the door, it’s so abrupt, your hair stirs with the small amount of wind it kicks up, and the workings of magic buzzing in the air. _He’s getting really upset._

Mettaton is there, but he’s radically different then how you’ve seen him in person so far. Sporting his equally infamous “box form”, he balances in place atop a single wheel in the hallway. His hands appear to be covered in thick gloves, reminding you vaguely of the characters in cartoons you would watch growing up, and the face of his chassis is adorned with small, square panels. Various knobs makeup the line of his waist, and Mettaton’s arms, as they are, seem entirely jointless. Somehow without a face resembling anything human, he manages to meet G’s mile long stare with a sharp glare of his own, the many pieces of glass on his person flashing between red and yellow.  

“G, there you are.”

“you heard what i said.”

“And I’m choosing to ignore it for now,” Mettaton replies thornily, a barb of anger puncturing your chest. But the showdown in front of you is put on hold as Mettaton notices your presence in the room, and his demeanor becomes less measured by only a fraction of a decimal: “Darling! Had I know you were here, I would have put a little more effort into my wardrobe!”

He’s almost completely naked save for the gloves, but out of the limitless connotations his statement could stand for none you can think of are anything less then meant to insult your friend. G grits his teeth as he remains holding onto the door, no doubt considering slamming it into Mettaton’s face.

“Should I leave,” you ask, the tension in the room as thick as frozen butter, and you’re nowhere near prepared in trying to cut through it with the dull knife that is your ignorance on the matter.

“he’s already overstayed his welcome-.”

“I only just arrived!”

“ _your existence is enough_ ,” G absolutely snaps, silence descending with all the subtlety of a guillotine.

You forget to breathe, more astonished rather than horrified by the vehemence in G’s reply. _What is going_ on _here? I had the feeling that these two were on bad terms back at Gerson’s, but this is more than a clash of personalities._ No one _else has been able to rile G up this easily._

“That was uncalled for,” is Mettaton’s eventual response, entirely lacking in his usual flair, and his lights have gone entirely dark.

G _tchs_ , looks away, and shame blossoms inside of you: G’s shame, he actually feels bad about his remark. Maybe if he were human he would be capable of being utterly remorseless for it, but by his very nature it’s impossible for him not to feel guilty to some extent for it.

Mettaton takes the lull in conversation as his his chance to wheel himself inside, and G doesn’t do anything at first...but then closes the door behind the other monster. You’re surprised by his sudden acquiesce to the matter, but the tense coil of your muscles is an unnecessary reminder that your Soul Mate is ready to throw Mettaton out in a beat.

“talk,” G says, striding over to the coffee table, and you can’t help but notice that he’s somewhat placed himself between Mettaton and yourself.

 _Is he worried that Mettaton might hurt me? Or is he seperating my presence from this issue as much as he can?_ It’s the second possibility that makes you bite at your lip anxiously. _He was also only just calming down, and here I was hoping he would be less stressed out in the coming days since Papyrus woke._

“Should we speak alone, I hardly think that the lovely Sirius would want to hear of our spat,” Mettaton says, leaning in your direction and waving a hand for emphasis.

“i can take you home.” You look up at G, meeting his eyes as his voice dips lower, growing level and more calm when directed instead towards you. “but it’s up to you.”

G promised that he will come to tell you more about himself. About Mei and his memories, but does that extend to outside matters such as this? Were the two related at all? Whether it be yes or no, you want to know more about him beyond the issues of your bond, and more into him as a person.

The life he’s lived, the things he’s seen and done. Who he’s met, and how he’s affected their own experiences. What comforts and dissuades, enrages or impassions him. But no matter how extensive your interests remain, you will never allow them to interrupt the importance of one defining factor: “Do you want me to know?”

He breaths out, his rigid stance dropping minutely, but not just so enough that you would miss it. “it...would help,” he reluctantly admits, as if he’s handing you some great burden. This is nothing new, G ever reluctant to shift the weight on his shoulders on to that of any others’, despite the obvious strain that it’s causing him both in Soul and body. But it only serves to embolden you with each chance he takes, and you leave your space on the couch to stand beside him.

“I want to stay.”

The cradles of G’s eyes, one endlessly dark while the other remains lit with yellow light, softens, his mouth tugging into a smile-

“Oh, this is precious!”

G’s skull snaps around, his teeth baring into a biting remark, and you catch the fall of the hand that had begun to lift before Mettaton’s interruption. The robot has both of his gloves up in a very familiar motion, his pointer fingers and thumbs forming a box that he, you assume, stares through at it encompases the image of you and G before him.

“Movie magic! It’s true what they say, these situations can only write themselves-!”

“cut the crap,” G growls, fists curling a his eye sockets bore down into the monster, a feat made easier by his dissolving patience then the height difference between the two. It isn’t much, but G is still a pretty lanky, stretched out to dry kind of guy, and Mettaton somehow manages to curve his metal form to meet it. “you’re not draggin’ siri into one of your day-time soap operas, you tool.”

“Darling, I never would have pegged you for the type to watch them!”

“i sat through them because it made him happy,” G states firmly, and this answers your earlier question immediately, red flags snapping to attention and nearly causing your jaw to drop as you finally realize what’s going on.

 _“I heard about the dreams,_ G... _you aren’t the only one who cares for him.”_ Mettaton’s voice echoes in your head from all those weeks ago, when the three of you stood together alongside the road running before Gerson’s, and you first witnessed their heated animosity.

G catches your eye when you almost spin to face him, a question on your lips but you don’t dare let it come tumbling out. He sighs, the sound strained, and that’s the best answer you could have received.

Of course, he’s angry! There’s only one person in this entire world that can drive G to this level of protectiveness, and what could be more frustrating than having to protect his brother from the person he was eternally bound to?

_And from what I’ve heard from BP, Mettaton is so much of what Papyrus is not: selfish, and cruel, not at all hesitant in using others to get a leg up if it means supporting his own interests. I may have only learned of him through BP, but he worked under him for years with no sign in sight of the stardom Mettaton promised._

“How long did you know,” Mettaton asks, hands on his “hips”, you suppose they could be.

G doesn’t look at the ‘bot, his eye sliding over him in it’s narrowed socket. “he told me about them a couple of years ago. used to watch your shows so much after they came out, i thought that’s all it was to it. hell, i hoped, anyways,” he grumbles, and your hand squeezes his own. When the two came together, you’re not sure, but he returns the gesture briefly in silent thanks for your support.

“That isn’t the same as knowing, boneboy.” You can practically see the finger waggle, but Mettaton must be restraining himself if he knows better not to bother. “Plenty of my viewers have come to me exclaiming their late night fantasies of their escapades between me and themselves!”

Well, he can’t hold back his personality long enough not to fake a swoon, but at least he made an honest effort.

“i didn’t _know_ until you told me,” G says bitterly, blinking back to the monster.

“Oh, you mean..?”

“paps’ first concert, he waited weeks for that show.” G shakes his head, regretting something long since passed, and glances at you rather than Mettaton this time, and maybe it makes it easier somehow.  “there was this cereal he’d have me pick up, with the toaster’s name written all over it. even the pieces were boxed shaped, n’ the milk would shimmer with the amount of processed glitter thrown in.” A laugh plays along his face, the memory lightening his mood with honest ease, and all because of his little brother. “i must have bought out every store between snowdin and the capital, but he never found it,” he huffs quietly, his frown long gone. “knew some guy who got the winning ticket. took a few extra shifts here and there to get him to pay up, but it was worth it. i slipped it in a box one day, told paps they must have tossed it in there under the bag on accident, so he barely missed it.

“i wish you could have seen his face, siri, when he found it. like it was gryftmas and getting a guard invitation rolled up into one.”

“It was one of my proudest performances, I recall it perfectly,” Mettaton comments, distracted, and you know he has the same scene in mind playing that G does when his warm grin slips away. “The sights, the sounds, the roar of the crowd! My Soul was fit to burst entire time, but I never knew it was due to him until he was there in front of me, declaring that he was my biggest fan, like so many others! He declared himself to be the greatest person that ever lived, and me for being utterly fantastic for having moved him so with my music,” Mettaton scoffs, but it’s utterly devoid of any upset. “Such arrogance, I adored him immediately.”

“if you knew paps at all you’d know he’s one of the best damn people you’ll ever meet,” G grits out, pointing a sharp finger at the robot, who crosses his arms stubbornly in response.

“I’ve heard the stories, Alphys told me everything I needed from her talks with Undyne. Of his desire to join the guard but his inability to achieve an invitation because of his gentle nature! The way he helps every monster he runs into with their chores and their woes, never asking for an ounce of their thanks in return,” Mettaton’s voice actually grows wistful, the superstar going so far as to seem no less humbled by Papyrus’ personality than anyone else you have met. “I may not know him personally-.”

“and you won’t! i’ve seen what you do to people. i’ve talked to your cousin about your neglect, bp spent years cleaning up your trash, and everyone knows alph gave you that shiny new casing so you could make yourself look better-!”

“Blooky has nothing to do with this-!”

“blooks has everything to do with this, and so does everyone else you use up and throw away when they don’t fit into your perfect little world! if you think i’m going to let you leave my brother behind in your dust while you run off then hell knows where, then you don’t know **anything**!”

Distinctly you're aware now of the spider web feeling of static in the air, the charge lifting your hair slightly on end. It may as well be raining, because petrichor is wafting around you in waves, and for once it brings with it a shiver of anxiety that you’ve not felt before in some time with the build up of G’s magic.

“Oh, you’re one to talk, mister all or nothing! At least I try! Alphys told me about how you gave up in the middle of your work in the Underground, how you turned into a slob that only lazes about and let’s Papyrus pick up the slack! And hear I thought when a father dies, the eldest is supposed to take their place!”

Pain whiplashes across your Soul, cutting through the building haze of G’s anger and your bleeding helplessness. You’ve only been able to stand and listen to the ever growing repertoire of fury between the two of them, but hearing this, and seeing G stagger internally from the impact, although he bares his pointed teeth with his next response you feel the pain remain unchanged: “i hate myself for what i did, for what i am, but that only tells me more that i need to keep power hungry bastards like you away from my brother no matter what kind of trumped up bond they share with him!”

This needs to stop, when you turn your head it’s impossible to miss the glowing sheen of magic in the room. However sparse the house may be, whatever is available has very quickly forgotten it’s attachment with the floor: the couch is hovering, curtains are fluttering over their windows, and even what sounds to be silverware in the kitchen are rattling in their drawers. G isn’t the only one readying for a confrontation, a distinctly purple glow is alighting around Mettaton’s frame, crackles of energy skittering across his surface, and his panels dancing between colors rapidly.

You have to stop this. As important as it is for the two of them to talk about this, about Papyrus, it would never do any good if they destroyed each other in the process! It’s absolutely mind numbing, balancing G’s rage and his hurt with your own concern, not to mention your personal offense towards Mettaton with what he’s said about your friend, but you can’t just stand there!

Biting back your frustration, you try to speak through the white noise of emotion, but the argument has yet to reach a lull, it’s like trying to interrupt a hurricane. “Guys, this isn’t about you-.” you try awkwardly, but Mettaton shoots down your attempt without ever noticing that you spoke at all: “You say power hungry, but I was never the manipulative fool who played the friend when Frisk fell into the Underground! I didn’t hide my intentions, and you were there with the rest of us! Trying to rip Frisk’s Soul from their body to break the barrier like everyone else!”

“i tried to find an alternative, asshole! have you seen this face! i didn’t get it falling on the ice! you didn’t even have the intention of taking them to asgore, you told everyone you were going straight for the surface, and you would have left your precious fans behind!”

Mettaton’s vocals shift to something absolutely ugly: “”Oh, Mettaton tried to go to the surface!” That makes me trying to kill the kid like the rest of you so! Much! Worse! _Doesn’t it?_ ”

 

“What?”

Looking at a corpse, it’s strange how incredibly easy it can be to give into the compulsion. G thinks it may be the same when rubbernecking to see car crashes, watching horror films, or looking up to see how someone is doing when they’ve moved on from you. You know what you find could be bad. It could stay with you, imprinted behind your eyelids to blind you while you sleep, or whispering sweet nothings in your head, loud and clear no matter how many people to try to surround yourself with afterwards.

It can’t be helped. Everyone comes with their own personal amount of curiosity, and the more masochistic the desire the more inclined you are to give into temptation.

When your horror descends upon his Soul his dedication to the conversation sorely lags, but it’s that one word that attracts his attention like a fly to decay.

It’s weird how a magical a barrier can’t keep out a single, hungry insect.

“What did you say?”

“siri-.”

He speaks you name, but you don’t notice his reaching hand, your eyes deadlocked on his own-

“They don’t know? You didn’t tell them," Mettaton is looking at you, his voice dripping with bafflement.

-your flinch away from his touch hurts worse then anything Mettaton could  ever possibly have to say. Which should be funny, since he's the reason why you’re looking at G the way you are now: your hands over your mouth, eyes blown in the wake of the nothing neith monster has to offer in explanation.

He’s not going to laugh about this. Not now. Not later. Not in the years to follow. But it’ll hang frozen behind his eyelids, that expression of fear, for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short, but it couldn't have ended any other way


	30. Of Trying and Trying Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is nearly a week late, and i wanted it to be longer, but if i don't post it now it really will be!  
> i'm...really really sorry guys

Mom isn’t happy. If Frisk did not have the Eyes, as you do not, or if they were a stranger, they would still be capable of seeing this. It never makes them happy to disappoint mom, but Frisk has learned to live with that disappointment, given how often they’ve seen it in their many, many lives.

But then, no one here is happy today.

“ _Mom, please_ ,” Frisk pleads patiently, and they know things have gone their way when she sighs through her teeth. It does not feel like a victory, it never does.

“Very well, my child,” she says, appearing more so tired than before, this time not the late hour, nor her busy day at work enough of an excuse for her to wave off Frisk’s persistent frown. Rather then continue to argue, the mother bends down, running a hand over the top of Frisk’s head as they stand together in the living room of their home, before giving in and scooping them into a warm embrace. Frisk loves the feeling, and doesn’t hesitate to return it. This, this they can never grow tired of. If anything, the yearning for it only intensifies with each attempt to fix the timeline. Killing her the first and the last, was not enough to change that.

 _Stop wasting time,_ Chara grumbles in their ear, but Frisk knows they enjoy this as much as Frisk does.

When Toriel moves away with one last concerned, silent question to Frisk, one they shake their head at, only then does she stand and face the other two people in the house: you, and G. Standing in the foyer, the two of you present a curious sight. Only that morning the two of you were nearly attached at the hip in G’s apartment, Frisk positively glowing at the sight of the strengthening bond between the two of you. The child’s reputation for being a shameless flirt--and they are!-- as well as an astute matchmaker made it to where they couldn’t help themselves, but just seeing two of their friends getting along so well provided an endless amount of satisfaction for them. It reminded them of when things in the Underground went _right_ in a timeline, and Undyne and Alphys’ relationship was a prime example of how one romance could be absolutely crucial to a proper, happy ending for them all. Frisk doesn’t know what to call your bond, be it romantic, platonic, or some pseudo mix of them both, and labels in that context never really concerns them at all, but, again, it doesn’t take the Sight to see how monumental stability between the two of you could mean.

But then that changed, as things often do no matter how careful Frisk may or may not be in their planning. Somethings are certain, fixed, they always occur in some shape or another, somewhere down the line, and this was something that G had been worried about for some time.

Not that G had been thinking of the timelines in this context, no, Frisk had promised that unless something truly horrible occured, they would not Reset. G was thinking about you, about your bond, and had gone so far as to go to Frisk the day after you starting staying on the couch.

 _“it wouldn’t work out, kid.”_ G grumbled from the otherside of the chain link fence around the school. A moderator from across the playground had yet to notice the monster as he leaned against the woven metal, but G could teleport in a blink without a given warning if need be.

Frisk wondered sometimes, how much harder would the fight in the judgement hall be if Sans had been G at the time?

Gripping onto the diamond lattice work of the barrier, Frisk frowned up at him, but their friend didn’t look down to see it.

 _“even if i got over this, if i could...try again. siri wouldn’t want to be someone like me,”_ he chuckled mirthlessly into the chilled air. _“someone who tried to kill a kid.”_

Frisk wanted to shout at him about that, and tried to convince him otherwise, to try. But G didn’t budge. It wasn’t lost on them the irony of the situation when G bliped to Frisk’s side just to fix their scarf and hat.

“I’ll be upstairs while the three of you talk,” Toriel speaks in the present, hesitancy lingering in her voice. As necessary as Frisk has tried to convince her that this is, she still doesn’t like what they have to discuss. “If you need anything, just ask.”

It isn’t Frisk or G that she says this to, but you, her eyes swimming with worry that you’ll walk out of the house in a few hours, and never come back.

When their mom finally leaves, Frisk is grateful that Flowey stayed behind to act as interpreter. Normally it might be better that their sibling distract their mom, but Frisk is so worried that Flowey might let something slip upstairs about the situation, and fortunately Flowey accepted the role without complaint this time: Asriel’s current form is snippy and short tempered, but they have an endless wealth of patience for Frisk’s request, although he never acts like it.

Frisk gestures to the next room with their free arm, _“Let’s sit down at the table,”_ and proceeds ahead. G snatches a look at you from the corner of his eyes before following after first, probably as reluctant to cage you in as he has been since arriving.

When the two of you did, you’d been holding hands for the trip over, but even then a gulf had obviously grown between the two of you in the meantime. Still, it seemed as though stepping away from him, letting go of his hand, had been a forced after thought, and now you only look uncomfortable.

Your holding your left arm to your side with the other. Whenever you meet Frisk’s closed lids, they can feel your confusion in the air, a feeling that only grew thicker with G’s words after his initial greeting. _“we need to talk.”_

G sits on one side of the table with Frisk scrambling up onto a chair on the other after they place Flowey on top, the skeleton stiff backed in his seat as you take the chair to his right, a stretch of space separating you both that's filled with empty air. The setup makes it easier for everyone to see one another, and unsurprisingly you fail to take the seat furthest form them both, and closet to the door. As bewildering as this all must be for you, you aren’t _afraid_ of G, and you’re not comfortable enough to be directly by his side anymore, but running is the last thing you want to do right now.

Clashing against the tense energy of the room is the simplicity of it: from the mounted, smiling picture frames, to the brown, ceramic pot of hot cocoa on the table with its matching, four piece mug set, two of it’s cups left elsewhere in the house from where Frisk had been talking to their mom prior. They’d only just finished their homework, the cocoa had been a treat, and Frisk had plans of seeing Papyrus later in the afternoon when he finished reuniting with the squadron he still admires.

The room is softly glowing with the ambient lighting of the scones hanging in a small chandelier from the ceiling, in the fireplace elsewhere flames crackle brightly, and before Frisk one Soul smarts achingly for the other, which shivers in fearful anticipation.

“I’m guessing the bag of bones spilled what happened,” Flowey dead pans, not even rolling his eyes when Frisk chides their word usage only lightly. The flower looks between the two of them, raising an eyebrow. “What, that took not even a day?”

 _This_ time Frisk nudges at his pot, jostling his container noticeably until it falls back into place with a soft _thump._ G looks pointedly at the wall nearest to his side, away from you, his teeth tightening in his skull, but doesn’t comment, which actually surprises Flowey.

“You guys seem prepared for this,” you get out, G’s disc settling on the furniture in front of him, between his two arms on the table. “You know exactly what this is about,” you say with certainty, although it doesn’t make you any more excited about what’s occurring.

Frisk nods at Flowey, who spares them a glance before looking at you: “Look I told Frisk we could keep this on the down low with you around, but apparently no one can keep their mouth shuts. I just wanna make it clear, Frisk doesn’t have to tell you anything, they’re doing this because they like you and for some reason they think it’s necessary.”

 _“Flowey, would you stop acting like the protective older brother and get along with them already? I need to do this!”_ Frisk’s fists on the table are barely audible, another frustrating reminder of their outward, physical youth when in actuality they feel like the amount of timelines they’ve lived could easily make them the elder of nearly everyone else in the room.

“You don’t have to tell me,” you say out loud, catching everyone off guard. “I could get up and leave now,” G’s eyes tighten, a clash of conflicting emotions warring in his Soul that Frisk can make out with ease, but they’re no less aware of their own surprise. “But I...I’ve wanted to be apart of this for so long, I need to hear this to understand why. What I heard in G’s apartment, Mettaton said he tried to kill you. That they all did.” You blink, looking at the table. “He didn’t use names but I can only assume Alphys, Undyne, everyone. I thought it was amazing that you walked through the Underground alone, that you saved them, but I never would have thought that after seeing you together, that this happened.”

So Mettaton is the reason why this happened. It’s easy for Frisk to put two and two together and assume that Mettaton went to talk about G in regards to Papyrus, it only makes sense.

 _“Were the two of you arguing,”_ Frisk asks G, who nods, moving back to press his back against the chair.

“mett dropped everything. not in detail, but siri was there,” he nods to you, although he’s returned to not meeting your gaze again, and you don’t go looking for his. “the attempted murder, stealing your soul, becoming friends all in so many words.”

Frisk says nothing for a moment before turning to you: “ _You must be confused_.”

Flowey translates as requested, mercifully saving the scathing tone for later, and dropping to near dull neutrality, but Frisk knows better. They’ve heard Flowey’s passing interest for what you, yet another new factor, could mean for their longest timeline ever spent on the surface. You’re growing on him, they know, your quick acceptance of his barbed personality a strong reason behind this.

“It happened quickly, I-I don’t know if I heard everything correctly,” you say. “Mettaton said G manipulated you, that they tried to kill you, but.” Your brow furrows together, mimicking your continued displacement in the situation. “You’re still here.”

 _Oh,_ Frisk understands. Not here, as in alive, but with the monsters. Living with them, loving them. They tried to kill Frisk, but Frisk has chosen to remain with them despite that.

 _“It’s true, they tried to kill me,”_ Frisk confirms your fears, drawing on the horror that you’ve kept hidden in your chest, but you neither flinch away or leave. You’re still here, too.

_“But I did the same thing, and they know that. I’m trying to make up for that everyday, and so are they.”_

“Frisk? You can’t be implying that-.”

 _“I’m not implying anything, I mean it,”_ Frisk shakes their head, bobbed hair dancing. “ _I’ve killed Sans, and my mother, Undyne and everyone else. And I’ve died many, many more times then that.”_

 

Nights before this one, you sat in this very house, enraptured by the plea of a child that suddenly seemed years older than they were. Again you find yourself trapped in the same circumstance, and this time, you’re endlessly more disbelieving them you were before.

G sits like a statue nearby, neither confirming nor denying what Flowey is saying, his translation of Frisk’s silent replies making the situation harder to bear then it would otherwise be. You wish you had the monster’s skill at reading their Soul, but you’re newfound skill at healing with you own seems to have completely failed in bridging that gap.

Flowey is strangely compliant with his role, making you feel all the more like an outsider. _But I meant what I said. Bond or no, murder is murder, if I want to be apart of their lives, I need to understand this._

“Are you talking about reincarnation,” you try, thinking that this could be the case. Did the others kill them in their past lives, and in their own, and could they somehow remember…? But another shake of Frisk’s head tells you that this isn’t the case.

“Did that guy not tell you what Frisk can do yet,” Flowey asks with a leaf pointed at G, sounding more like himself.

“I know you can use magic, but I’ve never anything specific besides being able to see Souls,” you admit, glancing at G for a moment before looking away. You’ve been avoiding the action since the two of you arrived. You know G didn’t expect you to take his hand when Mettaton left, and when the skeleton asked you to come along with him to Frisk for answers. But your reason for your trust then is as it is now: if Frisk has been willing to remain with him and the others for so long, there must be more than this then a quick, snap of words from Mettaton had yelled at G in a fit of anger.

“When Frisk fell into the Underground, all that magic in the air woke something up inside them. I was hanging around the entrance, and I wasn’t exactly prepared for some kid to come crashing through the ceiling,” Flowey says this mostly to himself, before moving his black, beady eyes back to you. “There was nothing but a body when I first found them, kinda messy to be honest. I was prepared the next go ‘round.”

“What do you mean, “the next go ‘round”...” you ask incredulously, your sentence tapering off as an idea starts to come to mind.

“See, Frisk sorta has the power to turn back time to specific points-,” Flowey goes on, not stopping as you feel your eyes turn into saucers. “They can only pick one without starting all over again, but it’s basically what kept them going down there. You know, when everyone was filling them full of holes,” his face here turns frankly manic but you’re too distracted to be taken aback by a demonic looking flower because he basically just said

Jolting upwards, your sudden stand knocks your chair back and causes it to hit the wall behind you-“ _Frisk can time travel?!”-_ you shout with your hands planting themselves on the table and don’t even wince as everyone stares openly at your aghast expression.

Someone actually laughs, an abrupt, startled chuckle from G. Flowey looks at you like you’re some kind of idiot, thus nothing new, and Frisk nods, abashed for the first time since you’ve met the tyke.

“ _Is everything okay?”_ Toriel’s voice comes from the top of the stairs.

“Yeah! The human is just being a weirdo!”

“ _Okay, call me if you need anything!_ ”

 _Has she been hovering on the second floor this entire time,_ you wonder faintly, not the least bit upset with the flower. “You said specific points,” you prompt, still standing.

Flowey trades brief stares with Frisk, “Yeah, Frisk calls it using a SAVE and LOADING whenever they need to go back.”

“Like...like a videogame,” you ask lamely, Frisk suction cupping their lips into their mouth and actually looking awkward this time as well.

“ _When you pick up god powers outside of healing boo-boos you can decide on the names, you soggy_ -!”

Flowey’s pot falls to the side, taking the flower with it. Neither he nor Frisk have time before it moves, and you catch the beginning of one startled house plant before he rolls off the table- _thunk!_ \- and onto the floor.

“oh no,” G drawls, nothing about his tone reflecting anything resembling shock.

_“FreaKING, TRASH BAG-!”_

 

It takes awhile to calm Flowey down again, at which point your faint blush is long gone and G is back to appearing distant, but something about the brief argument has changed things. Frisk wants to think you’re both more relaxed as you settle into your seperate seats again, but you’re both obviously still ill at ease.

_This is just the start of my explanation._

“Whenever you died, you reloaded, that’s how you survived the fall into the Underground,” you say quietly, not liking the subject matter Frisk’ takes it, and they know their age, as well as their friendship with you, has everything to do with it. “The others tried to kill you..? Why would they do something like that,” you ask, playing with your fingers but otherwise meeting Frisk’s closed gaze. “Does it have something to do with the war?”

After a moment, Frisk nods. _“So to speak, it had everything to do with the barrier,”_ Frisk responds through Flowey, the flower parsing the language into something of his own.

“The barrier was serious magic, turned out that in the end only using the stuff of the people who put it up to begin with was going to bring it down.”

“A...human soul.”

“Hey, you got it,” Flowey rings out in false cheerfulness, before deflating again. “Before Frisk, there were six other humans that fell down there. One by one, they all died in some way or another. And after they died, or were killed, or murdered, or _whatever_ , their Souls were swiped and taken to the king.”

“So, you mean the only reason why this didn’t happen to Frisk was because they had the ability to try again, over and over,” you ask, and where previously you were astonished, Frisk can only pick up on the dread lacing your voice.

 _They understand_.

Frisk smiles, wishing to reassure you, but only feels tired. A lingering, persistent exhaustion that they can only hope will fade with time.

“Not everyone knew Frisk was even human when they first met them, but it caught on eventually,” Flowey continues. “Undyne, that robot, a bunch of them tried to take Frisk out along the way. But this punk had to go around befriending everybody they ran into,” Flowey says this directly to Frisk, who only raspberries at the flower impshily in response. Flowey rears back, disgusted. “Would you stop that!”

“even paps tried,” G actually supplies, and Frisk sees his mood lighten a fraction. “wanted to use the kid to join the guard, but no matter how hard it got, paps refused to take the kid out. _heh_ , figured the kid’s persistence to battle him meant frisk wanted to be friends.”

“I mean he threw Frisk in your garage and tried to feed them dog food, but _sure_ ,” Flowey replies snidely.

“hey, he learned,” G shrugs, finally peering over to you with a blink. “the kid stayed with us for a while. paps was never happier to have someone around to feed his creations to.”

As weighty as the current situation is, it’s impossible for you not to smile about this it appears. The motion is subtle, but warmth blossoms inside you along with it.

“Is that how you broke the barrier,” you ask Frisk, the moment lingering in the air ever so much. “You tried over and over until it worked?”

_“Yes, but…sometimes, it was difficult.”_

“Frisk is just a kid...they wanted the best, possible ending for everyone, and, I don’t know, when your so called friends are killing you over and over again...you get tired of it…”

Silence hangs heavy in the air, and whatever lightness the matter of Papyrus brought on withers.

_“When I reset a dozen times, things become predictable.”_

“They could copy everyone word for word. Nothing changed unless Frisk made it change, and they had to keep doing things differently to create new stuff.”

_“Eventually, I became so afraid, so angry about feeling the pain of dying, of not getting anywhere no matter what I did, I gave in. I defended myself, and then, I attacked.”_

“It was a Froggit, some nobody from the Ruins. Frisk was pretty guilty, but they had to stick around, to see if it was worth it somehow.”

_“It was as Sans said in the judgement hall. I grew stronger.”_

“Frisk thought by gaining experience and magic power they could maybe destroy the barrier, you know? Actually do something that lasted!”

_“But it was more than that, too.”_

Flowey doesn’t say this out loud for Frisk, and doesn’t look happy about the idea of doing so. “C’mon, why do they need to know about that?”

_“I’m just as guilty as they are about this, Flowey!”_

“They started it! They didn’t have to see you and try to kill you on sight!”

 _“Like you did when we met_ ,” Frisk says jokingly, the memory hardly a scar in their long history together. Not even their final battle was capable of changing that.

“That-! I’m, I’m _different_! I don’t even have a Soul!”

“ _For now,”_ Frisk reminds him privately, but of course this only causes him to grump further: it’s never been a promising topic for Flowey.

“You don’t have a Soul,” comes from you, and both siblings turn their heads to see the disbelieving set to your eyes, shifting between the two of them before glancing at G. “He told me you were related to Alphys’ work, Flowey, but I thought anything living has a Soul?”

Frisk winces slightly at the question, aware of Flowey bristinling at their side now over the newest topic change. But you have a point, it’s not something that can be avoided now that it’s been brought up, and it does help that it ties into everything at the end...which even G doesn’t have a complete knowledge of.

“Not that it’s any of your concern, but I wasn’t just one of that egghead's little pet projects,” Flowey snarls, leaning over the table as Frisk reaches for him and bringing out the guilt that was raising in your Soul the moment you must have conjured the question. “I was _dead_ . And because of her need to be some kind of hero I became _stuck like this_.”

Your eyelids flutter in embarrassment, a tinge of red touching your cheeks, but when G starts to respond in either defense of you or Alphys, you continue: “I-it’s just you’re so an-animated, I never would have begun to consider it otherwise.”

“Hmf!” Flowey sinks back, crossing his leaves over his steam, but Frisk doesn’t let go of his pot right away. “You damn humans, you’re the reason I’m like this at all. If you weren’t so _selfish_ , monsters wouldn’t have a reason to kill a bunch of kids in the first place!”

Your previous self-consciousness is gone. In its place rises up at least a fraction of the horror G must have witnessed, a looming, painful thing that narrow your pupils to near pinpricks. When you turn your head G breathes out through his nasal cavity and a flush of sympathy fills Frisk’s Soul.

“most of um were before we were born,” he says, dropping one arm over the back of his chair while the other remains on the table. Frisk knows he wants to get closer, to provide some sort of physical comfort to wear away the rigidness of your position, but he’s not about to breach that space without your consent either. “there was one before Frisk, little older. but they were all kids.”

“How,” you manage to get out, and his eye sockets tighten.

“the last was killed by a monster in waterfall,” he responds lowly. “tori’d know about the rest.”

 

Toriel, the caretaker of the Ruins, and the very place that exists as the only known entrance to the Underground outside of the King’s castle. Given the spell of warding outside the steep, mountain entrance, the hole where Frisk fell can be the only location where the remaining children would have gone.

If Toriel knows, then does that mean she was there for each and every one that passed through? How many children did she have to say goodbye to before she never saw them again?

_Frisk told me Toriel refused to leave the Ruins with them when they chose to go. She already lost her own children, letting go of possibly a ninth…_

Frisk helped give her purpose again, that’s what she told you when you first met. You can never hope to fathom what it would to be in her situation, a queen that has undoubtedly seen the deaths of hundreds of children in her time, and so many because of a damn war. But when you see her, she’s magnificent to behold. Time, death, her children, the responsibility of her station, all of it just made her kind.

 _I need to ask her one day. About everything, if she’ll tell me,_ you think, swallowing thickly. Crying over the anguish your friend faced wouldn’t alleviate what had already happened, and it simply isn’t your place when she manages to keep it to herself, the very person facing that pain. But if she’s willing to talk, you’ll definitely be there to listen. _I’ve spent so much of my time these past months thinking about myself, I need to make time for the others._

Speaking of, the discussion you’re currently having is far from over.

“I still don’t think we owe them anything,” Flowey is saying to Frisk, who’s no longer holding back their brother. Glowering in disappointment up at the yellow monster, their silent reply is incapable of reaching your ears.

 _Magical hearing or Soul reading would have been a nice,_ you think dryly, wishing you could hear Frisk’s more formal way of speaking if their manner of writing is anything to go by. Now that the issues of magical do-overs have come up, everything you’ve come to know about them is starting to make sense: their level of maturity, Frisk’s capacity to save monsterkind at all…yet, if anything you can’t help but be more astonished by their existence.

“then i’ll talk for them,” G unexpectedly speaks up, regarding you wryly through his socket. “i wanted to keep this neutral, and flowey’s never short on dealing when we’re playing the blame game. but...i don’t want you to be more uncomfortable about this then you need to be, st-...siri.”

He caught himself, but you caught that quick fix at the end.

G doesn’t want you to be any unhappier than you already are about this, going so far as to make sure you know he’s not personally trying to edit Frisk’s explanation. That...that’s not something you considered. You simply thought he knew it would be best from the source, and Flowey has been acting as Frisk’s speaker for you, it’s so natural you didn’t question it. But they, G, was more careful about this then you thought.

G’s worried about what you’ll think, but when you took his hand in his home, you never thought he’d let go. Would it have been easier, if he’d sent you into the void to drift? If he ran but never returned? It isn't naive hope that tells you he wouldn’t do that, you know he wouldn't. You _do_ trust him. Because he’s G, and G’s not that type of person.

_I never thought he would kill a kid, either...but Frisk is still alive._

And it’s not just your estimation of his character that tells you he wouldn’t toss you into the nothingness like that.

Maybe it’s predictable, or cliche, but it’s all you that tells you he wouldn’t do that. It’s your Soul thrumming in your chest, telling you personally that it’s okay.

“We’ve only known each other for so long, and there have been misunderstandings,” you tell him, the corners of G’s teeth slanting down ever so much, his eyes weakening as if he’s expecting where this will lead. “But you said you wanted to try.”

 

His eye sockets broaden softly in his skull. No, it’s not going where he expected to at all. Hope is something he’s still acclimating to, that single hit point he’s been hanging onto supported by everyone else’s but his own.

His brother, that’s why he remained for so long in the Underground. His brother made him content to live his life. Away from the stars. After the loss of their father. After the death of his first Soul Mate.

Of Mei’s death.

Years of living down there, and after degrading to a single, glaring number, it never wavered. When G saw the stars, it wasn’t possible with Papyrus asleep in his arms, unable to see them. When you walked into his life, the number never changed. He still doubted. He, still, doubts. So when this began, and G brought you to Frisk’s home, he had no hope that you would leave with him again.

Yet here you are, and here it is again, someone else. Like Paps. Believing in him when G thought there was nowhere else to turn and look inside this damn body of his.

G doesn’t know how to do it, to thank someone for giving him another chance after screwing everything up so magnificently badly but damnit if he’s not going to find some way to _keep_ trying.

_i’m going to spend the rest of my life happily making it up to you, star._

“i’m keeping to that promise,” he speaks aloud, and when you begin to smile at this his close follow up is only natural.

After a short pause, G looks to Frisk for guidance. The kid seems pretty satisfied, but mercifully decides to keep out of it. The " _for now"_ from Frisk goes unshared, where you can hear it anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my work hours have unexpectedly been extended, and on top of having longer nights, one of my weekly days off have been taken away completely. im really, really sorry for promising regular updates, only for this to happen. im hoping it will change soon, but i dont know yet.  
> anyways!! thank you for stinking around!! for being so patient!! you guys just make me so happy and im so thankful for that, too! i hope to see you again soon!


	31. Of Selfishness, for Love and Purpose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reposting this chapter after a bit of editing. it didn't receive any comments the first time go 'round, so i stepped back and did some tweeking. forgive me for the double update (^◇^；)

"using their power to return to specific points in the timeline, frisk began to experiment by killing monsters."

The light mood of the table has gone. No one is happy with the topic at hand, the continuation of Frisk's admittance to turning on their monster attackers in a desperation to defend themselves...and, more shamefully, change the course of the stagnant reality they found themselves living in from beneath the earth.

It was there, that wryness, in Frisk's face. In the way they carry themselves now at the table, with their shoulders rigid, chin unfaltering, and mouth set into a grim line no child should ever have to wear. And it was there in their words, spoken through Flowey’s voice, only moments before their monster sibling refused to go any further in the tale.

_"They were so scared of dying again, and again, and having nothing to show for it! They were tired, so when someone attacked them for the hundredth time, they finally did what anyone else would have done: they defended themselves!"_

"the froggit was the first, they were an accident," G goes on, meeting Frisk's closed eyes. In the low, warm light of the room, the scene could have almost been called comfortable in any other circumstance, magical even. From the cooling tea pot in the middle of the table, to the picture of a skeleton in leather, a small child and their narrow eyed flower companion, and the normal, young adult human that is you, it makes for a rather peculiar sight to behold.

But it remains a tense one.

The ambient, passive magic of Toriel's home, the very one that normally fills your ears with the thrumming of an unseen guitar, and your Soul with a familiar comfort of a home once long since lost is not present. Instead the home is quiet, save for the ticking of the clock, a snapping of the dying fire in the next room, and the distant hiss of vehicles as they pass along the streets of the queen's neighborhood.

This is a scene comprised of a man that has been accused of attempted murder, and a child that has confessed to that very act in multitudes.

"what flowey said was right, frisk tried again. they wanted to see what would change if certain variables in the timeline were removed," G says, and it isn't clinical, but nor is it thick with emotion. This is a story he's known of for a while, one he's heard again, lived again, and although it's one he's never come to be happy with, it's one he's had to accept has occurred. Crossing his arms, his back hits the spine of his chair, which remains turned crookedly in your direction, so both you, and Frisk, fall easily in his line of sight.

"they went town by town, kind by kind. sometimes they killed only one person to see what would change in their absence," his skull tilts towards Frisk, G growing silent as Frisk relays something you, frustratingly, can't pick up without help. "once frisk managed to make papyrus king."

You blink at the image this invokes: Papyrus in the same golden armor as Asgore when the man stepped from the mountain, the tall skeleton sitting on the absent throne, nestled in a sea of golden flowers. Admittedly, it makes for an utterly beguiling sight.

G nods, his eye gleaming dully when he no doubt sees in his mind the same image you do, but a smile remains absent from his teeth. "it took killing undyne, mettaton, muffet, the king, and toriel for it to happen."

_Toriel?!_

Frisk doesn't recoil when your gaze flashes to them, and you can't ask them why, or how they could have done it. Because you know immediately without having to ask. How many timelines did it take of dying before they found themselves capable of killing outside of self defense? How many more before Toriel was even an option?

Your vision stings again, it blurs, and you bite your tongue to keep from crying. If Frisk isn't doing it for the choices they made, what right do you have to do it in their place? But you're argument is a weak one against the throes of your heart, the moisture wells up, and you look away from them. First at G, then somewhere between Flowey and him, not wanting them to see, wishing you could wipe them away without being obvious about something they've probably already noticed.

_Frisk hurt so much, they thought killing their own mother could be the only way to change things. Killing Toriel, Undyne, any of them-._

Wood startles across the floor, shooting electricity through your nerves. A soft, hurried sound of footsteps skitters around the table, and there, at your side, a brown head appears at your side between you, and G. The tilt of your chin downwards sends several fat, ugly tears free, but the arms of the child are reaching, imploringly, up to your person. You hold out your own for them, marveling faintly at the small size of someone so incredibly infinite in stature, and aware that this is the first time in months since MK that a kid has climbed onto your lap.

Frisk's arms wrap around your neck, your cheek catches itself in their hair, and there you close your eyes, squeezing past the damp and seeing nothing but the dark. "I'm sorry," you ask for forgiveness for your shortcoming, " _I'm sorry_ ," you rasp out in sympathy for the injustice thrust upon them as not just as a child, but as a finite, mortal being, and Frisk's arms hold you close ever still.

 

_"You humans, always apologizing for things you didn't do."_

_Removing your attention from the shelf before you while still carrying the remainder of the stack in your arms, you look down at Gerson as he scuttles behind the counter. There's a disapproving frown under his beak, one you can see paired with a heavy furrow of his eyebrows, and the cluck of his tongue would make you laugh if the statement didn't raise your confusion so._

_"What do you mean," you ask, descending carefully from the ladder without freeing a hand to catch yourself. Gerson hums, a gravelly sound that reminds you of the shifting of rocks under boot treads, and he stares at you from  the side with his undamaged eye critically._

_"All that apologizing, I mean. You lot tend to do it a lot when someone else gets themselves in a spot of trouble, even if you had nothing to it. Weird, how that works," he shakes his head. "Always so damn hesitant to apologize when it matters, but never hesitating when it's hardly your fault." He chuckles dryly. "Or maybe that's just youth?"_

_Sitting the remainder of your load on the glass counter top, you stare at the books rather then Gerson, already nervous for responding at all. "I-it's someone's way of showing empathy, I guess. I wouldn't like it if it happened to me, so I understand their pain, and I regret it, in a way. "I"m sorry this happened," not "I"m sorry I hurt you in this way"."_

_Gerson hums, considering, and you're just grateful that he's not upset. If anything, his visage grows thoughtful. "Makes sense, actually."_

_"I can't say anything about the second part, though," you say lightly, remembering more then once when it was hard to apologize when you had actually directly hurt someone. Gerson chuckles._

_"Monsters, when something bad happens to another person, we try n' share in the mourning with our Souls. I always thought it was a waste to get too caught up in the bad," he shakes his head, but there's a twinkle to be found in his expression. "You humans, you're less touchy feely in some ways, and without magic, guess it makes it harder to form that connection. Words probably make up for that."_

_Gerson frowns deeply. "Maybe I'm just some old, crusty loon, but I can't decide if that sounds better or not."_

 

With intent and magic, monsters can share a voiceless understanding of pain. Through touch emotions may be expressed clearer, the hurt spread amongst many to ease the mourning.

Humans, they're very solid people, and that solidity sometimes makes you feel so utterly limited in your capability of sharing someone's hurt. Frisk, they're still hurting. Free from the barrier, they have so many choices left to make on how to move forward, and no matter how much they do, it doesn't erase what happened. Not really, no reset could make up for dying once. Let alone thousands of countless times.

Physical and limited, left with words and the embrace of your arms, you try in your temporary existence to alliterative that pain for them. If only by some small, pitiful amount, and Frisk holds on through the entirety of that moment. When they let go, and your silent crying has subsided, you see the same, embarrassingly puffy redness to their face that you no doubt share.

You laugh quietly at the sight, sniffing against the moisture gathering irritatingly in your nose, and the sound echoes in the upwards shape of their smile. Frisk doesn't remove themselves from your lap, turning around until they sit sideways, and your arm finds an almost natural position of keeping them in place so they don't have the chance of slipping, while the other falls over the back of your seat.

All the while during this exchange G sat silently, and now you see him echoing your position, his side pressed against his seat as he leans in and watches the two of you.

"you've got somethin' on your face, kid," G comments, reaching forward to poke at Frisk's tiny stub of a nose, and Frisk bats away his hand, wiping at their skin swiftly afterwards. A rumble of amusement passes through G's sternum, and you're glad that the potential awkwardness of the situation that was you breaking down into tears never came.

 _Frisk saves the day,_ you think in aside, and the kid looks up, grinning again, although the impishness they typically sport is yet absent. "How did the barrier fall in the end?"

"it was the other human souls," G says to you. "none of us remember the end very well really, but frisk told us the weed here swooped in to grab them," he hooks a thumb at Flowey on the table. You're less surprised by this confession then you have been for basically everything else so far, and Flowey's "Hey" is more akin to a childish whine then righteous indignity.

"flowey tried to use them to obliterate the entire world," G deadpans, earning more grumbling from the plant.

"Hold on," you speak up, squinting at the flower. "Why?"

G's eyes slide back to the kid, and he sighs. "he was the same as frisk before they fell, 'cept unlike the kid, he hung onto his hatred in the end. a soul is the culmination of a person's entire being, with it absent from his self, anything he might feel to help connect with others is significantly dampened, if not gone altogether.

"for the flower's sake, i'll skirt the finder details," G states, Flowey whipping his flower up in a clear sign of surprise. He honestly didn't expect G to consider his feelings, and you have to admit with your previous assessment of their relationship, you're also surprised. "but when flowey woke up as he is, he was scared. he woke up in a new body, but unlike with the amalgamates, his soul was gone. that fear turned into resentment."

 _Flowey is the same as Frisk, no wonder why Flowey gets along so well with them compared to anyone else._ It finally makes sense, and you can't help but appreciate their relationship even more. Frisk has always served as a peacemaker for Flowey's moods, mediating potential arguments whenever the Flower grows to harsh, while simultaneously calming their sibling. With this new information, their bond is only more so extraordinary.

"Flowey is still alive," you comment, the Flower huffing characteristically with your next words. "I'm guessing Frisk managed to talk him down in the end."

"frisk showed him mercy," G breathes out, and you wonder if the strain is due to him knowing he may not have done the same, or his continued, personal astonishment for the kid's capabilities. "freed, the souls along side frisk toppled the barrier."

Seven human Souls, that was the key. You wonder if things had been peaceful somehow, could the children have willingly brought down the barrier together? But then, the years between each descent could have been remarkable, and there are so many what-ifs to consider in the meantime.

Aludra would say that considering the past, even if passed, is still important. It's how you avoid making mistakes in the future, but there are still some questions you have about what was said in G's apartment.

"Mettaton accused you guys of manipulating Frisk."

"we weren't all friends with the kid at first, but in the end we all watched them march to their death."

Frisk shakes their head furiously, and although G's negative is more subdued, he still waves away their refusal of what he's said. "yeah, we tried to talk you down n' all, but we should have tried harder. locked you in a better place than the _garage_.” G sighs, the tips of his fingers skating across the top of his skull. “it's kind of hard to claim to be someone's friend when you let um get themselves killed like that. and the closer we got the more you wanted to fling yourself into the fire."

Silence falls, leaving you to contemplate the harsh reality that your friends have been facing, the most recent events with Frisk alone...

"I can't say I really understand what would drive someone to kill Frisk. A kid," you say out loud, peering down at the head of neatly cut brown hair. There's a cowlick trying to form itself in the middle of it all, and your faint sympathy over how much agony that's going to cause when they get older goes unmentioned. Carefully, you continue, "But...you all were locked Underground for so long, the amount of desperation that must have been felt after being trapped for a millennia...and there were _thousands_ of you," you try to see it again from their perspective, peering into the clinging gloom of the room. No matter how hard you try, it's just wrong in your eyes, but you don’t need to understand, do you? You need to be there for them.

"I don't want...I don't want to argue with Frisk about this. If they were able to forgive you all despite everything, how can I?"

"you can leave, siri," G mutters quietly, his voice urging even as his singular pupil dims in the darkness of it's socket. "you don't have to accept being apart of this."

"That's the thing G," you smile mirthlessly. "I'm really selfish, you know? Even after hearing about it, I don't _want_ to leave, not really.  Maybe that’s why I can face this without running away," you reach up your free hand and grip the top of your chair, knuckles turning white with the roll of shame in your gut.

What would happen if you walked away from these people? From BP, G, Frisk, all of monsterkind? You would be alone, that’s what would happen. It would be like with your brother again, the death of whom left you grasping at air on what to do next. The only reason why you ever graduated was because it gave you some sort of direction to go on, but you saw him everywhere: humming cicadas like motor engines under the summer heat, the straight backed books in the library browning with age, strumming guitars behind coffee shop windows. Then the monsters appeared and the world inside your book became tangible and real.

You could leave the room of this house, but you could never, ever erase these people from your life. But you don’t want to, either.

"I want to trust Frisk in their decision, and I want to trust you guys despite what you were driven to do, but I also want to admit that a part of me is accepting this more for my sake then yours."

G slumps into his chair, his magic brightening again as he meets your eyes. "playing the honest card, when i say that that’s a huge relief to hear it’s mostly out of selfishness on my part as well."

You trade grins with the skeleton's, subdued and embarrassed, the guilt paliable from either side of your bond. Frisk kicks their feet in your lap--ah, there's the deviousness they were missing.

“the kid wants it to be known they’d rather you stick around, too,” G rumbles in amusement, Frisk smirking cheekily, and with pride.

Sticking a hand through their hair, you muss up their brown locks in an attempt to dislodge their satisfaction, but the puff of their cheeks when they attempt to act upset only makes them look more adorable.

"You mentioned before that Sans judged Frisk for their actions in the hall,” you speak up, cleaning up your mess, and returning your gaze to your mate. “I'm guessing that's the part Mettaton blamed you for."

G's eye flickers, his spark of candor vanishing, extinguished mere seconds into his uplifted attitude. "G?"

"something like that..." G straightens up in his chair, his hands finding their pockets as he ever so much draws into himself. "sans would meet them in a hall, give an assessment for what they did, but it was only if the kid killed everyone up to that point that he tried to fight them."

"Even if...Papyrus?"

He nods, "papyrus never stopped believing in frisk," Frisk's hands grip onto the fabric of their pants tighter. "think he was the only one in the underground that could never really kill them.

"i don't like promises, never have, but i made a promise to tori, and paps, i didn't think he'd like it if, you know, i didn't let the kid hang onto that second chance he gave them," he shrugs. "had to break that promise when things got too bad, there wasn't anyway i'd let them hit the surface knowing that there were so many other people up there for them to potentially kill. with no mercy for monsters, i couldn't be sure that way of thinking didn't extend to the rest of the world."

" _G_ , you just admitted that you were trying to protect people."

"siri?"

"How can I be upset with you for that and yet still trust everyone else? And Frisk, for that matter?"

"it's more than that, siri," G says firmly, clenching his fists atop his legs. "it may have started with them, but when given the choice in the end i tried to do it for _me_."

Frisk flails in your lap at a now familiar display of refusal, G's frown sinking stubbornly into a near grimace. "i'm not arguing over that again kid, attempted murder doesn't change the fact that the word "murder" was involved."

Bristling at your own lack of ability, you look for signs of what they're saying but of course fail to find any. "You say me like acting in self-defense makes you a bad person," you state helplessly, not seeing the logic behind that.

"because what i tried to do wasn't to protect myself, siri," G says in a hard voice, the snarl in the set of his teeth directed inwards at himself as you try to understand. "the last time the kid nearly died because of me was in _this_ timeline. _after_ i became g."

"That doesn't..." you trail off, honestly confused by this statement: it completely contradicts what G told you before about the incident. Maybe it had been some time since he had told you about his and Papyrus' efforts to find some means of destroying the barrier while the kid, Frisk, was trapped Underground, but you remember that conversation clearly.

_"they were just a kid. had been read all the same books paps had. n' i couldn't go back on my word to the old lady...when the human had almost reached the king, paps was desperate to find something to work with, n’ so was i."_

"That doesn't make any sense," you speak up, watching him closely. Had he been lying to you back then? What reason would he have to? "You told me that you wanted to help Frisk, t-that’s why you tried using your father’s research."

How could he go from that terrible desperation to wanting to kill Frisk?

Frisk shifts in your lap, their movement against your arm prompting it to move so they could clamber up, and rather strangely, onto the dining room table. Turning around, they sit down on the edge before reaching over to grab Flowey, pulling the silent monster to their side, and stilling afterwards. Neither of them speak, but Flowey looks...nervous, their sibling pulling their pot in close for comfort, Frisk's or his, you don't know.

"Unless, Frisk, this was one of those timelines?"

" _Those timelines_ ", where they tried to commit genocide against an entire people.

Frisk shakes their head, brown hair swishing, and a part of you at once feels relieved. You don't know why, that hardly erases what has happened.

_Maybe the fact that all of the bad happened in other realities, almost, it makes them seem less real? As if they don't really matter...just because they were erased._

Frisk killed them, all of them, and so many times before they did the same to the kid. But that didn't matter, right? Because those were separate, abandoned timelines, all of those deaths _didn't_ _matter_ -?

Disgust rolls in your stomach, not for G, not for Frisk. But for once since beginning this conversation, it's completely directed at yourself. _Nothing about thinking that is okay!_

G leans back, stealing away your gaze after it had fallen to your lap, and you see one of his hands gripping a corner of his seat while the other fists on the table. You see this response-and belatedly realize the consequence of your reaction. He thinks you're disgusted _by him_.

"G, I'm not-" you stop, aggravated, explaining that you may have just realized how much of a piece of crap you are isn't going to make this situation any easier. Holding your hands together, you squeeze at their digits, trying to gather your mood back up into yourself. Into a ball, into something private and calmer then it was before, but the set of his bones tell you that this isn't helping. To some extent, G may be able to feel the emotions of your Soul as they backlash against his own, but he can't read minds, or parse out the finer details of those emotions. You have to use words.

"I thought of something awful," you start, then breathe out mirthlessly through your nose. G's yellow disc searches your face, he doesn't interrupt, but you know he's listening closely, and it all comes out in a rush.

"I feel better knowing that it didn't happen this time around, but that doesn't change that it happened at all. What I mean to say is, for a moment I treated those past timelines as if they didn't matter. But you lived those timelines, you died. Both of you and, and I can't _imagine_ ever being pushed into a position where I would be driven to a choice like that. Facing those experiences, being forced to do something you may have never otherwise considered, I don't think that makes you a bad person incapable of change."

G's eye sparks, shines in the darkness of it's socket, and the laugh he suddenly emits is disbelieving but _wonderful_ because with it comes the beginnings of a smile to his face, and when you reach forward, taking his hand almost shakily--because admit it, you're still very knew at comforting others--his returning grip is, briefly, fueled by the strength of his appreciation. Again relief flushes against your Soul, but it his own, a worried, tentative thing you try to hold onto for dear life.

"i asked the kid that, once," G says, his eye flickering to Frisk, who reflects the skeleton's expression with something mischievous and knowing. "if even the worst person could change," his gaze settles back on you, that relief erupting into something _warm_. "weird how you'd be the one to answer it."

"Really," you reply, skin echoing the haze of your Soul and fluttering red as you find yourself momentarily embarrassed. "Yeah, weird."

"Okay, _okay!_ Enough with the eyeballing, can we move on, _please?_ "

G clears his throat, shifting in his chair as you do the same, and Flowey gives a heavy roll of his eyes. Frisk pats him in sympathy, but doesn't share the sentiment, shooting you a thumbs up and a smirk that leaves you with the surreal feeling that you're being backed up by a very small wing man-.

"Frisk was trying to save me, okay?"

Blinking at the Flower, you try to connect this little piece of information with what you heard last from G. Was...was G trying to murder Flowey or something?

The flower scoffs at the very obvious question mark written all over your face, but G interrupts.

"thing was, frisk knew how to break the barrier this time around, but there was one thing they wanted to do before they brought it down," he says, and Flowey falls into a sulk, if a rather tempered one compared to what you're used to. "you recall undyne's explanation of alphy's experiments?"

"Y-yeah," you nod, thinking back even further to the last time that particular conversation was had. Stars, that was the first night you watched anime with the two of them, and when you basically nearly ruined everything by having them watch something that lead to Alphy's divulging her deepest and darkest secrets.

 _Anyways..._ you sigh inwardly, wincing at the memory.

"S-she injected Determination into Dust and dying monsters, creating the amalgamates." Your lips part silently, a thought at once occurring to you. "I never thought of where she could have found something like that."

G nods, affirming your speculative guess: "alph took the determination from the souls of the fallen humans. it wasn't enough to harm them, even a minuscule sample is capable of dwarfing a typical monster's soul magic by a tremendous margin." His eyes narrow faintly, growing critical, before he shakes it off. "frisk new about the experiments, and they know that although the plant here is essentially emptied of his soul, it still exists."

"Are you saying it hasn't, hadn't, moved on? It was Underground with everyone else, outside of Flowey?" You don't understand how this could work, but at the same time Flowey's very existence is in itself a marvel. "But, I thought monster Soul's were fragile...?"

Unlike in the case of human Souls, don't they crumble shortly after leaving their bodies? That's what you've been told, anyways.

"something about the revitalization of flowey's dust anchored it to this reality," G gestures at other monster, who doesn't respond. "combined with the magic of the barrier, there's no telling how much is really at play here that keeps him going. if it can block the bonding of souls between monsters and humans, there's no telling what else it was capable of."

"It's gone now," Flowey says thinly, glaring at the table weakly. "Kinda hard to question something that no longer exists."

G frowns. "good point," he says dryly, letting the matter drop. "i didn't have a hand the experiments myself, but i knew enough about alphys’ work to be able to replicate it. after everything that happened, the kid couldn't stand the thought of losing even one person in the process. so they came to me."

_The depth's of Gaster's laboratory had been in complete abandon when, led by his surviving sons, the remaining scientist's of the Underground converged together to into tap the magic of the void. It took a single, determined afternoon to clear away the cobwebs and sweep up the dust, but along side four other monsters, Alphys, Sans, and Papyrus had stood ready to conquer the impossible: to complete the work the world's greatest mind had failed to master._

_Merely weeks later, Sans tried to take that magic into his hands, as his father did before him. With his victory over atom displacement, which would allow him to teleport from place to place at will, he thought that maybe, just maybe, he held some advantage. It took days of working alongside his best friend, his former colleagues, and his brother, and years of accumulated research to reach that point._

_But mere seconds for it all to fall apart._

_When Frisk approached him, he's in the lab, but he isn't alone. Papyrus is there, lain out in a bed, connected by a thousand magical devices met to keep track of his every dip and climb in health: his resonance, his magic levels, how many redundant breaths per second he took, it was all recorded. G tried to make him comfortable, pulling his blankets from home, and reading to his unresponsive form every night between work shifts, but nothing about his state changed. For all the world, Papyrus could be napping, pulling in days worth of time for a practice he loathed as much as Grillby's double stacker at the bar._

_G sits beside him in a chair of his own, his single, good eye on most days locked on, but not seeing his brother, while the other remains swathed in white bandages. There would be scarring, but a little facial reconstruction was the least of his concerns in the current circumstance._

_While machines hum distantly, some displaying lines of information that he knows by heart and cannot always completely understand, it isn't due to the noise that G fails to here Frisk's visit right away. But when he does, and a foot fall grows a little to close for comfort, something clatters to the ground. He's on his feet in an instant, a snarl on his teeth, and dark, quiet socket of his right eye is blazing blue, sending sparks soaking into the fabric covering his face._

_Frisk stiffens, but doesn't run, rearing back on one foot for a second, before replacing it next to the other. G's mouth twitches, he freezes himself...and then his magic drops away to the typical, roaring storm it's become since he became who he is today._

_"sorry, kid," G utters out loud, the rough edge to his voice made courser still by it's disuse, by the perpetual exhaustion of his Soul in flux, and, this time, he doesn't chill him to hear the sound of his new vocals. Frisk relaxes altogether as he sits down, nearly dropping to the chair, and G leans over after, picking up the book from the floor. For a moment, Frisk sees what appears to be a monster and a human atop a grassy knoll, but then it's out of sight with the turn of G's back._

_"G, I'm going to bring down the barrier," Frisk speaks. It isn't with words shaped with their mouth, but with their very Soul, and G doesn't need to see them to hear the kid loud and clear._

_Since falling into the Underground, it wasn't the awakening of their magic into the world that finally bought them the leniency of being to be heard when after so long they had been blocked by their own physical limitation, but it was the monsters themselves that finally breached that gap. In the world of the surface, Frisk's ability to communicate was limited by those willing to listen. People that could have learned, but oftentimes never took the time to teach themselves sign, but now in a world where so many don't even have mouths as human know them, the spoken deceleration of the Soul was what created that bridge. Even without sharing magic, Frisk could simply think as a normal person would, directing their thoughts at another, or even several individuals, and they would be heard._

_Frisk still took the time to practice their sign, to show it to inquisitive monsters who so eagerly wanted to pick up any information given of the surface, but, in many ways, Frisk was finding that speaking with one's heart gave them the capability of expressing their emotions in ways that speech never could before. If Frisk touched a person, that feeling could be amplified by a thousand, but Frisk kept away from G. His own frazzled state could be overwhelming, Frisk was capable of deducing, but the skeleton also did not want to touched._

_G had changed in many ways since his time as Sans, no longer was he the same lazy monster that would insist on leaning into Frisk, using his gravity magic, just to push them into the snow. G kept to himself, speaking very little, his eye set on his work, and his mind focused on his brother. Frisk could see his changed Soul shivering under the weight of it's newfound power, as well as that overwhelming temptation to simply give up._

_Apart of Frisk would hate themselves for this, but if there was anyone would be tempted to take their offer, it was someone grieving over the approaching loss of their only family._

_"But I have one, final request before I do, and it involves Papyrus."_

_G finally responds, his skull shifting so that he could spy the kid out from the corner of his eye, but then he has to shift entirely as his now unresponsive socket fails to do the job. "what are you talking about, kid," he asks, sitting sideways in his seat, and Frisk resists the urge to bite at their lip when his wryness settles itself on them._

"He could kill you for this," _Chara speaks in Frisk's Soul, but it's without their usual, mocking undertone. They're as tired as Frisk is, if not more so. Their argument over the case had been remarkably short. Chara was willing to help take the risk for their brother because they simply didn't want to see Asriel languish any longer. If it failed, then Asriel would be released. If not, well, Chara was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. Either way, they could be losing a sibling all over again._

_"That's the plan," is Frisk's response to the other human sharing their physical form. "I want you to take my determination G, and inject it into Asriel's Soul."_

_Sans knew about Asriel being trapped in the Underground because Frisk told them. They told them about finding the lost prince after one of Flowey's defeats, what Frisk didn't tell him is that was the only thing that led to Frisk resetting a different time when, after everything, freedom was literally in arm's reach. They couldn't do it, leave him behind after all of the pain, and horror he had been through. If Frisk did, wouldn't he remain there forever? Trapped in the dark, unable to be heard while his body, in flower form, lamented on the surface, unable to truly enjoy it for what it can so beautifully be while the better half of him remains apart?_

_Maybe it was one act of selfishness among many on Frisk's part, and that was simply an excuse, but they couldn't live with themselves knowing that after all that time, they had still failed someone so important to them._

_G's mile long stare cracks, an unintended pun Frisk knows Sans would be proud of under different circumstances, and the skeleton's eye narrows. "you know all about the creation of the amalgamates. what makes you think that this won't result in the same horror show that it did in the past?"_

_"Because you didn't have me," Frisk states firmly. G doesn't respond, his mouth grits, displaying his continued rejection of the idea, but Frisk keeps going. A hand over their chest, over the place where their Soul rests, they try harder. "You can see my determination levels, G! Compare it to the others, they're human like me, but theirs can't compare! I am completely red, G, and with Chara's help, that makes me even more right about this!_

_"Take some of my determination, take it all, help him become free-!"_

_"NO!"_

_The chair topples to the floor._

_G is standing once again, his covered hand biting into the cover of Papyrus' book, and the refusal is etched into every hard bone of his face. "no one else is dying because of me kid, i'm not risking it!"_

_"Not even for Papyrus?"_

_G falters, Frisk swallows, and doesn't stop._

_"Papyrus is still alive. He's not dying, G, he's just asleep. Give him enough, or fuel your magic with my own, and he could finally wake up._

_G's eye darts to his brother, it's impossible for Frisk to miss the motion while they continue to watch him as closely as they do now, too many resets spent trying to kill Sans has made Frisk infinitely perceptible to his reflexes, and his weaknesses, and some things never change with a person._

_"Monsters aren't made to handle the amount of determination that a human's Soul holds, but with Gaster inside of you, a boss monster, fused as he is--e-even with the way he is with Papyrus, that has to make some kind of difference! And if it doesn't work," Frisk's bearing weakens. They want it to work so, so badly. "Then I reset."_

_"you could reset now," G says plainly, without emotion. But he already knows the answer._

_"Papyrus wouldn't want you to."_

_Frisk hates themselves so, so much. Papyrus is only in this state because Frisk chose to reset for Asriel's sake, and now that they're so close to saving their friend, even with Papyrus comatose and Sans changed, they're hesitating._

"Papyrus still has a chance," _Chara says to Frisk as they are thinking about it._ "Asriel has been waiting in the cold, and the dark, and the earth for so long."

_Frisk wishes it made this easier, that it made them entirely impartial to what they say next, but it's impossible. Maybe it's their years spent with the monsters that has made them so incredibly intune with something like that, empathy, or maybe it's due to whatever traces of innocence they may have from when they were only a normal kid. Frisk doubted it before, they could be wrong, but it doesn't matter in the end._

_"I know how to break the barrier now, if his memories of the past returned with it's falling, or if he ever found out afterwards that we stopped because of him, he would blame himself." It's bitter in Frisk's Soul, swimming like black tar, sending lances of pain throughout their body. But they say it anyways, they remain determined to try._

_"the same could be said if you die for this, kid," G replies thinly, and Frisk thinks that it's happening, they're losing the only hope they have at helping Azzy. But then G looks at Papyrus again, and it lingers. "if you die..."_

_"If, G. It's only if, remember," Frisk hands clinch, their heart racing within them, nothing compared to the racing of their Soul._

_They'd gotten this far, they'd done so many unspeakable acts together. This last thing, it had to be easy in comparison._

"i nearly went through with it."

Frisk remembers it, the first, excruciating dip into their Soul from the needle of the extraction machine. G had put them under beforehand, but their very alive state, combined with that of Chara's present Soul amplified the agony by an indefinable amount. Alphys' had told Sans about the nightmares she would wake from, thinking she heard the screams of the human children as she did her work, but never capable of being certain if it was simple something she conjured herself, or if they were still very much able of feeling pain in their current states.

G heard those screams from Frisk, the cacophony of terror layered over itself, echoing two beings in the throes of something worse than death, and reverberating through the shell of the machine in grotesque amplification.

Perhaps G could face the disappointment of his brother if Papyrus found out, because at least he would be alive, and they would be free to live on the surface. G thinks he could live apart from his brother, knowing that he was okay, even if they never spoke again.

But if Frisk died from this, and G had their Soul to work with, he knew he would still hear their screams. He would be certain of what they would be going through, a certainty he would never relay to Alphys when, after she started helping the amalgamates thrive, she's finally recovering from her project. And that's what stopped him.

Before it was a matter or survival, protecting himself and the remainder of monsterkind, of the world, from a creature that was the textbook definition of evil, of everything what monsters should have been to humanity. That was destroying a body, tiring Frisk until they snapped back into the person they once were, and reset things to a happier, more tolerable time. A time when he was as content with his lot as he could be since the kid fell, when he had his brother, and the three of them sat smiling together as they ate Papyrus' home cooked meals in the warmth of their home.

Hurting Frisk's Soul was worse than this. It wasn't just a matter of possibly destroying them altogether, and losing Frisk, their powers, and those nights altogether. It was something instinctual that what he was doing was base, it was _wrong_ by it's very definition, every core part of him was _yelling_ that it needed to end

G turned off the machine. He pulled Frisk's body from it while it was still humming, yanking off wires, unfurling restraints, removing their breathing mask, until it was all gone and he run from the room to find them healing. Against Frisk's quiet pleas, he went to Toriel. But they never told her anything of what happened. The mother demanded answers from the monster, but Frisk couldn't let her know, they didn't want to see them fall apart when the surface was so close. It took time for Toriel to calm down. It's possible that she never would have spoken to G again, let alone would have let Frisk near him, if Frisk hadn't of made up an excuse.

G didn't ask for the details, but between the two of them, Frisk was the first to apologize. G didn't stand a chance, it was the first words Frisk spoke when they saw each other again.  And then they walked from the judgement hall, where they had caught G standing, alone, and went to face the barrier.

"i felt like i'd failed papyrus all over again," G's eye bores into the air. "in the end i was too selfish, couldn't deal with my own discomfort to keep trying. but i don't regret stopping," his line of sight breaks, and he sees you again, the room, and the house that contains it, nestled in a neighborhood under the open sky.

"What I said still stands," you say, without a single pause to consider an alternative, and you march forward, against G's growing disapproval. "You did it for Papyrus' sake."

"siri-."

"You did it to save your _brother_ , G," you speak up against him, almost rising to your feet, but you already feel taller by your deceleration, by it's _certainty_ , "Papyrus would have been heart broken if he knew, but you still did it to save someone! One person or thousands, you can't measure the well-being of others by the number of people _involved!"_

Now you _are_ standing, and G is looking up, eye sockets widening, shoulders dropping

"And you didn't go through with it! You didn't kill Frisk, you didn't shatter their Soul, you heard that they were in pain, and you ended it! So stop thinking that you're the worst thing to crawl out of the Underground, do what Frisk already has, and forgive yourself!"

You sit down immediately, the chair protesting against the floor as it scrapes against the floor with your sudden momentum, and crossing your arms, you glare _away_ from your friend.

None of them say anything, and you don't care. You're pissed. You're so damn tired of G blaming himself, putting himself down, and trying to carry the weight of the world on his back when so much of what has occurred has been completely out of his hands! Papyrus' collapse, G's near fusion with Gaster-you haven't even heard the circumstances of Mei's death and you already know he must blame himself for that also.

Even so, with the actions that were taken with purpose, knowing Frisk could die, there are other people that exist that have to carry that blame. You don't think he has the right to take that from anyone, let alone to treat it as if he somehow did worse than all of them combined. Nothing about this was right, it could never be right no matter what the end goal was, but G isn't the only one that made a mistake!

"siri-."

" _What,"_ you nearly snap, looking at him again, but you refuse to feel flustered for your response. G's hand hangs in the air, as if it were about to reach for you, but then it drops, and he _laughs._

He honestly, truly laughs, sinking back, closing his eyes, and outright chuckling in the purest form of light heartedness that he's been in since this began. And your Soul _is_ lighter, everything that extrudes from him sings of relaxation, if of a sort that only comes from being worn out good and proper, it's still what it is.

Your anger drops to a dull simmer, a part of you ready to spring if necessary, and G's grinning when he opens his eyes again. "stars, who knew getting yelled at you would be so damn therapeutic?"

Your mouth drops, you're almost insulted, but G frowns. Tapping at his skull, he searches for something while thinking. "humbling? i don't know, siri, but," he considers you, smile lightening anew. "i think it's what i could seriously need sometimes."

Frisk titters quietly, Flowey moans in anguish, sinking into his pot, and you blush, wild and rosy as you try not to break your agitated composure. "Well, good! As, as long as it's getting through to your, that thick skull of yours!"

"loud and clear," G responds, raises a finger, and swipes it over his chest. Once, then twice, shaping an x.

 _Ah, and there it goes._ Your eyes drop down to your lap. You can't see Frisk's cackling, or G's grinning, but you are so very much aware of the skeleton in the room that shares a connection with your Soul.

“I just want you to understand, G,” you speak through the haze of your discomposure, the need to express your desire inflamed by the earnest exhilaration that the return of this gesture has brought you. Lifting your head, and seeking the unwavering devotion of his attention in this moment, you press forward and say, “However long it takes, I will make you see that you _all_ deserve to be happy.”

There’s some small victory to be had when G’s smile weakens momentarily, light brushes of blue appearing on his cheekbones and disappearing as quickly as they came when he turns his head to Flowey. “you hear that kid, we’re not the only ones who get to have a stubborn human cleaning up our mess.”

“Yeah, you seem really broken up about that,” Flowey grumbles, sprouting up into a leaning brood, and only stopping to glare lamely when Frisk hugs his pot close to their chest.

There are tears in Toriel's eyes when you depart. Tears of joy, the mother muttering thank you's into your ear as she holds you tight as goodbyes are shared. Frisk jumps in for an embrace, and you give it freely, despite the heaviness in your chest knowing only a fraction of the terrible fate that they faced. That all of them faced.

You leave with your things, your brother's picture in your arms, and G's grip in your hand. Toriel had extended the offer for you to stay again, but G is reluctant to keep you away because if something does happen, he's the fastest means of you getting to any sort of help.

There's still so much to discuss, you know. You want to talk to Undyne about her part in Frisk's time Underground. Her's and Alphys', Papyrus', and perhaps even Mettaton's if you ever happen to run into the bot again. Hearing his conviction over Papyrus ringing in your head, and his need to get through to G, you know that as long as you remain with the brothers, this is bound to occur.

When you return to the apartment, Papyrus is there with his best friend, the doctor, and Gaster in his jar. Immediately upon seeing you he shouts his hello, asks you about your day, tuts over his brother for missing lunch, and continues his work in the kitchen, all the while talking the entire time.

The air is filled with laughter and conversation, this could be the perfect time to bring up the matter you just discussed with Frisk, but you don't. It isn't fear, but rationality that stays your voice. Frisk should be there when it happens, when you ask them for more of the truth. It's only right that when they recount their story, as Frisk requested, that everyone be involved.

So you hold Gaster, you will him to hold on, to have hope, and you talk to your friends. It's easy, maybe too easy, to give into the good cheer and simply enjoy being around them. But what you know remains in the background of your mind, made stranger still by the glorious capacity of their joy despite everything that they went through. Later, you promise yourself.

Later, you promise them, because you want to help carry their burdens, too.

"You didn't mention them, Chara or who I used to be."

Frisk turns their head against their pillow to see Flowey in the dark. Flowey sits on the window by the bed, flower head turned towards the night, where the cold presses against the glass, and creates fog around it's wooden frame.

It was true, G had recounted the tale of the laboratory, but what G doesn't know is that Flowey's Soul was that of the fallen prince's. He knows about Chara, the second self lingering within Frisk, and existing through them in the process. Frisk wanted to show them the world, all the good and bad that comes with it, but more then anything they wanted to give Chara a second chance. Second chances, Frisk couldn't help but believe in them when they had so many themselves.

_"Mom may have heard."_

"Maybe," Flowey mumbles. And he grows silent. So silent Frisk thinks he could have fallen asleep perhaps, but then he speaks up again, and it pulls them with a near jolt from their own haze. "You don't think they'll let it go, after all I did?"

Frisk doesn't refuse, not right away. They sit up in their bed, thinking of the remainder of the barrier, keeping Asriel's Soul from fading, deep within the Underground where it waits. One last request, that's all Frisk had asked, and they had consented so easily. After freeing them, they said the least they could do was keep Asriel's Soul safe from fading away.

Frisk was scared of that happening with Flowey, his conscience, still on the surface. Asriel told him of that darkness, that one that wasn't the space above that held the stars, or the one of the void that sent every Soul to their next, physical form. It was something looming, hungry, and it scared them. And Frisk understands. They saw it sometimes, on the edges of their Soul when they reset, but for the longest time they always thought it imagined until Asriel confirmed it's existence.

It was nothing. Not rebirth, or the everything that was so described when you told them about Gaster's experience. It was a complete opposite of eternity, and Frisk was terrified of what would happen if Asriel's Soul floated free.

They'd heard stories of the incompatibility of two of the same people existing in one reality, if Asriel's Soul tried to move on while Flowey remained, Frisk feared that he would be swallowed up by the act of the universe trying to correct itself.

 _"They won't,"_ Frisk says, knowing this has to be true. Wishing it would remain so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I'm still looking for a voice that could match up to G's, do you guys have any personal headcanons?  
> next time: bonding time with siri and g, what are you guys anyways?


	32. Of Night, Come Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok but have you considered: http://treacherousthoughts.tumblr.com/post/169726044861  
> no paps this time, the update is up late but that means the next chap is 100% cinnamon roll goodness

The night finds you quiet, and restless. Sleep hasn’t come to greet you, let alone tempt itself into the folds of your mind, and soothe away your tepid thoughts. Because that’s all they are: still, unmoving, your mood near to dissociative as you take in the smooth landscape of the ceiling above. That isn’t to say that there isn’t so much waiting beneath to be called for, set to burst and send your thoughts into a frenzy at the slightest provocation. A small part of you knows that it’s too late for this, you have hours yet before the dawn comes, but spending the better part of it wondering rather then resting wouldn’t answer any more questions then it would conjure them. As elusive as it may be, you are tired, and that makes it easy to enjoy the softness of the mattress beneath your body, as well as the gentle ambience of the night around you.

G is absent. Papyrus was pulled to bed hours before this one. Grumbling about his ill-begotten fate, he’d been tucked into the throes of sleep in less time then it took to finish the second page of the story his brother had picked out for him. G read to the end, turned off the light, and you found yourself in the awkward position of wondering where you would rest for the night.

Before you could even properly consider the couch, G picked up your bag from it’s side, and trailing after him led to the only other available space in the house: his room.

“i get dibs on the tv,” G had smirked, a glint in his eyes as if he thought he had won something, and you set your mouth to a stubborn line.

“You need to sleep, too, bonehead,” you argued, utterly incapable of narrowing your eyes to complete the picture, and G’s resulting laugh told you all you needed to know about how well of a job you had done trying to scold him.

“okay, okay,” is his reply, his own attempt at looking chastised failing with the way he’s smiling, but you don’t think he really tried.

A few minutes later when you had gone to use the bathroom to freshen up, during the walk back you’d snuck a glance into the living room. It was dark save for the light of the window that hangs in the dining room area, one of G’s hands propped up on the back of the couch giving him away. When they wiggled impishly in your direction you sent a silent raspberry his way, but returned to his bedroom, a sort of giddiness lingering in your chest as you went.

But that was then. And although you had given up on falling asleep anytime soon, you knew time had passed, and feared reaching for your phone to discover just how much. It’s strange, almost, resting alone. Previously you had G, before then you had fallen into a nap in the midst of a room full of monsters, and even before then you had G and Papyrus beside you in the youngest brother’s room. Thinking back, you haven't really been alone since you had pulled Gaster from Papyrus’ Soul. Maybe that’s what it is, and now that you think about it, the room begins to feel strange. Solid. Touched upon with the life of your friend and mate G, but definitely emptier without him here, in more ways than one.

The sheets rustle as you move. Throwing back his light blankets, you sweep your legs out until your feet touch the unscuffed floor beneath. Standing up, you prepare yourself to leave, formulating a plan in your head involving tarrying in the bathroom while actually listening to see if either of the siblings should be awake-.

There’s a knock. Solid, like wood against wood. Or bone against the door.

You take the few steps needed to cross over, and lo and behold when you pull it open, someone stands there, waiting. A faint read of surprise skitters across G’s face when he sees you answering, his still poised, curled fist shifting as he rubs his hand against the back of his neck.

“can’t sleep?”

Your lips threaten to pull up at this: who’s at whose door this late at night? “No, not yet,” you reply, your voice sounding quiet even to your ears. You blame the threads of exhaustion still clinging to your every limb, and it may be due to the low lighting, but the faint lines underneath his eyes tell you G may be feeling the same.

“thought i’d check up,” he begins, his eye light moving to the side, and a slight wince furrowing his brow. You wonder what he must be thinking, but then his eye has returned, and his small tell of self-deprecation is gone again. His hand drops away, and he looks to the room beyond. “mind if i step in for a sec?”

“No, it’s okay,” you reply breezily, lighter then you thought capable of, but finding yourself in the odd circumstance of allowing G into his own room makes the situation almost funny. You close the door behind him as he enters, and the skeleton hesitates for the briefest of moments, standing in the center of the room as if uncertain, before walking over and sitting on his bed with a sigh. You join him, revisiting your place nearest to the head beside the pillow, folding up your legs and tucking your knees under your chin. Closing his eyes, G almost mimics your posture, unaware as he pulls up a long, bony leg and holds it at  the ankle with one hand while the other falls, slightly bent, against the bed. You don’t know where to rest your eyes, but there’s only so many chances in your lifetime you’ve been given the opportunity to examine the fine, many numbered bones of someone’s foot, so it’s easy to start there. The bulkier segments that his metatarsal bones sprout from are larger than a humans, and you could think that it would be to make up for the lack of muscle, but then you would probably be liking G too much to your own kind.

He’s a monster, from the tips of his bare toes to the smooth slope of his head, but as inhuman as he may be, it only makes his being here, in your life, all the more appealing.

“hey, si?”

You flinch, eyes widening as they sweep up, meeting with his own.

“penny for your thoughts?”

The dial up connection in your skull stutters but finally connects, and you can’t keep the soft from your lips. “Where did you hear that?”

G’s expression reflects your own, “isn’t that something you say topside,” He asks, the question not leaving his teeth as he starts to smile.

“No, th-that,” you shake your head slightly, faintly annoyed by the return of the sutter in your voice. “The name?”

You don’t know if he’ll understand, but then he does, comprehension dawning, and G laughs lightly. “si? dunno, think i heard it in a dream somewhere?” He says this as he brushes a hand over the same chromedome you had just been thinking about, and unbidden a laugh jumps into your throat, and escapes.

You see it, the study of the old brownstone where you and your brother used to stay lit up with golds and browns, and the gentle creeping of a dusk through the closed window that refused to fade. It was a dream, only a dream. But G had been there, and so had Aludra, halting his playing, raising his head, and one syllable falling from his lips just before you had woken.

You hadn’t heard it then, but now you know that’s what it was. It couldn’t be, could it? But how could G know otherwise?

A coincidence, maybe.

“what,” G asks, playful humor lacing every letter of that one word, and you know he’s smiling because you're laughing.

It could never be something as simple as coincidence.

“N-nothing,” you stutter again, but it’s all because of your attempt at getting ahold of yourself, and when your giggling dies off it’s much easier to speak again. “That’s just what Aludra used to call me,” you say, welcoming the gentle ache in the muscle of your face.

“seriously?” G hums, a quirk in his brow and along his mouth as this catches him, unexpected. There’s a pause as he starts to move, and you’re already making room for him as G situates himself by your side. Reaching behind you, he props up his pillow, and lays down. His hands cushion his head as his arms underneath, the underside of one pressing against your person, and you find yourself peering down at his yellow disc as it glows serenely up at you. “i wanna know more about your brother.”

“What should I tell you,” you ask, honestly unsure of where to begin, but more then liking the fact that he’s asking. How often have you spoken of Aludra to G, anyways? There was the story you told him, many nights ago when both of you had woken from your own, separate nightmares. Weird how you found yourself up late again, and on the same subject with him no less, but again your experiences G have hardly been coincidental.

It was the bond, it had to be it. It’d be nice to romance about the idea that these things just sort of happen between the two of you naturally, but you suppose there’s nothing more natural then a destined connection as old as the stars themselves.

“you said he was quiet, didn’t talk much. like your dad,” G says, causing your breath to catch. Does he really remember that night so well that he would recall such a minute detail about your father?

“heh,” G appears sheepish, and taps at his skull with a crooked finger. “good memory.”

“Idactic,” you ask, skeptical, but almost certain that you wouldn’t be surprised if that was really the case.

“nah,” he says, elaborating only after you remain stare remains. “just for stuff i care about,” he shrugs, like it’s nothing, as if you aren’t suddenly rattled by the quick palpating of your heart.

Blush fading, you look into the dark, trying to get back on topic. “Ye-yeah, they were both really quiet,” you say, and you see them in your mind’s eye. Your father, unsmiling, and your brother much the same, but you had never told Aludra how much he reminded you of dad. You didn’t bring up your father really at all after he was gone, a sort of bitterness planting itself, unmoving in your brother’s Soul that refused to budge, but never once impeded his ability to raise you in that man’s stead.

“We didn’t like to talk about him, in the end. I think Aludra was angry with the dad and the way he gave up. But if you could have seen the way dad was when mom was still around,” you say, speaking into the open air, but seeing something else. Your parents when they were still together. Your dad grinning in that tempered way he did, setting his eyes to wrinkle at the corners while your mom looked on with her hundred kilowatt smile.

Only Lu could rival your father in his silence, and you’ve questioned countlessly if his Mate ever made him smile the way your mom did with you dad.

“Lulu was always so good with taking care of me,” you begin again, pulling back from the thought. “He even put off earning his degree and became a mechanic like my dad, quick work to help pay the bills when waiting around for a proper career wasn’t an option. He had a bike, like you do,” you confess to G, peering down and catching his evident interest.

Unfolding his arms, he turns over to lay on his side, propping up his head with one hand, while the other lays next to him, and you continue earnestly: “You were a lot alike, really. Incredibly intelligent, _cool_ exterior,” you say, drawing out that one word much to his amusement.

“think we would have gotten along?”

“No,” you reply easily, and his smile falters in astonishment. Your own turns apologetic as you hold up your hands and try to clarify, “Not at first, anyways! I just think he would have taken one look at you, and given the cold shoulder.”

G’s head drops into his elbow, a groan eliciting as his teeth actually part, revealing his two slightly pointed canines. You try not to be disappointed when there’s no glow of tongue, and it’s not hard, given how rare this display is at all. “c’mon, lu, throw me a bone.”

A laugh startles from you at this, and you reach over to pat at his shoulder in mock sympathy. “It’s okay! I’m sure it wouldn’t last.”

“I’d win him over,” G asserts, returning his head to his hand and says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world: “gotta if i wanna date his kid sibling.”

“G-!” You lean back at once in reflex, but don’t get up. G’s gaze remains unwavering, but you watch him as he sits up next to you with his hands in his lap, undeterred by your reaction.

“you mentioned a degree. how much older then you was he?”

“Only a few years...,” you say, latching onto the issue of your brother a lot easier than it would be to wrestle with...whatever G just dropped. _Not that I should push that aside; is he teasing me again?_

“He breezed through public schooling. A formal education would have been no different. But he was pretty argumentative,” you shake your head, recalling the incidents when you were tiny and your parents would have to go up to the high school to again, for the hundredth time, apologize for his overly rude behavior in class. “If he thought a teacher was being ridiculous he would say as much. Or refuse to do the work. Or just leave. I remember once he had been reading ahead in class for months and he tried to help a student with comprehending the subject material. The teacher, Mrs. Glasswell, got onto him about it. Something about “pandering to the kid’s lack of ability”, Lulu said. It was absurd,” you scoff, nose wrinkling at the memory of the woman.

“He was trying to help, doing what was right, what could warrant him getting in trouble for something like that?” Your shoulders lift as you give your own slow inhalation, a warm, wonderful fuzziness in your chest that you equate with your love for your brother. “He was the same in college. They’re more lenient there, but if he already understood the material he saw no reason to attend class. Try telling that to professors with a mandatory attendance policy.”

“what about you,” G asks, and your huff evaporates as you grant him a look of incredulity, head tilting along side your frown. “you wrote a book, siri. and i know how you can be when you really believe in something.”

You shake your head adamantly at what he’s implying, as if you’re as someone remarkable as your brother was, as G is now. “It was a simple story, G. Lulu did the most work--a-all that drawing,” you say, trying to explain, and feeling helpless when his steady gaze doesn’t change. “An’ I can talk as much as I want, it-it doesn’t mean anything if I can’t artic-articulate what I want the way I’m supposed to.”

Shame clouds your nervous system, and you turn your attention away when the very reason for your uncertainty stops you from wanting to go any further. This was exactly what you’re trying to tell G. For months now your stutter has improving around him and the others, but it was only due in large part to the fact that you considered them to be your friends. You’re comfortable around them now, and that makes a world of difference.

But when you find yourself on the spot like this, or feeling uncertain, it all comes rushing back. As always, it leave something familiar. A burning embarrassment simmering beneath your skin, pushed back ever so much only by the approach the fear that you’ve ruined this moment with your friend. So suddenly, so irrevocably. You’re being dramatic, you know, but it still hurts.

“siri.”

Your name is a whisper between him minutely parted teeth. It doesn’t ask for apology or command your attention, but you feel yourself listening anyways, welcoming the distraction from the smarting of your own feelings.

Lifting his left hand, G touches your arm, and his thumb begins a slow descent over the length of writing inscribed into your skin.

“you’re amazing.”

The smooth pads of his fingers skimming through the fine threads of hair on the other side, stopping when they cross over the plane that is the back of your palm, until they at last rest between your own. It’s not demanding, but asking, the soft pull that brings your nose near to empty cavity in the center of his face, darkness and light delving into your gently widening eyes.

“i want to help you see that,” his light dips, and it’s impossible to stop yourself from wetting your lips. When it goes again the glare of it has grown intense, sharp, and bearing deep in the trembling of your heart. “even if i have to tell you for the rest of our lives. i’ll never regret those words.”

The ones in his mouth, or the ones on your arm? In that moment, you really don’t know which he means, but you can’t find it in yourself to favor one set over the other. You just want to hear him talk.

And you have to ask.

“G, what are we?”

“i don’t know, star.”

Your gaze breaks from his, falling to the bedspread, not really seeing it. “You mentioned dating. Did you..?”

“i meant it,” and your gaze returns. His hasn’t changed, it’s still warm, entreating. It doesn’t scare you like you thought a moment like this world, but you're anticipating something. _Wanting_ , waiting to see what comes next.

“i want to be yours.”

Your breath stills.

“however you’ll take me. a friend, a lover,” his brow turns up in the center, another apology taking a different form: “never tried that before. dunno if i’d be any good at it.”

“No one asked?” You wonder out loud to him, disbelief making it come in a small hush.

“too busy working, and i had paps,” this last part is devoid of regret. It is as it is, and Papyrus is someone he’ll never be sorry for having in his life. “liked a few people, but that was it.”

“Oh,” is your reply. Simple, accepting. You don’t know what to think, and really, truly, you can’t find it in yourself to judge him for it. Hypocrisy at it’s finest, that would be.

“you steal any hearts in the meantime,” he asks, a quirk in his smile and the way the tip of his thumb runs along the underside of your own making you want to giggle in twitterpation.

“Oh, n-no. Just crushes, mostly,” you say, sounding strangely coherent, which is in huge conflict to how you’re really feeling right now. “There was a girl, in college? We kissed on a dare,” your nails of your free hand skim your bottom lip briefly, “It was nice,” and you cover your mouth, wishing you could pull that useless piece of information back inside.

His hand goes up, cupping your cheek, phalengies weaving into your hair. “was it?”

He’s drawn close again, and your eyes fall to his closed teeth, aware of the way he’s already smiling at your notice. His happiness is palpable, his confidence keeping you grounded, and his certainty of this moment making you wish it would draw on forever.

“i have to apologize for kissing you, siri,” G mutters, every inflection as heavy as molasses, as deep as the blanket of intoxication that’s come from his very closeness. It feels as balmy as heat in the distant summer, and tempting your to surge forward while also to remain still.

“When?”

“in waterfall. i didn’t ask your permission,” he answers, eyes halting from roving over your features to settling in your vision, and you at once know what he means. When you stood among the Echo Flowers, G tilting his mouth into yours, not touching your lips, but allowing his breath to mingle with yours. The electricity, the humming in your veins. It’s here, now, softened into an irresistible warmth that begs to consume you.

You want it to.

“That’s okay, I have to ask for doing the same.”

“when?”

“Right now.”

And so it does.

 

Your lips are soft, reminding him of icing pressed against his teeth before they can part. Sweet and wonderful, instantly satisfying through touch and smell and taste and leaving him wanting to swallow you whole. They yield into a smile, and when your laughter mingles with the roll of pleasure that sweeps through his magic, he can’t find himself capable of letting go. G’s grip in your hand tightens, fingers brushing into bedsheets, and those lips of yours melt into a sigh he can feel in his very toes.

It’s all there, your want enthralling, your need burning, and that burn is a curious, powerful thing that urges him to open his eyes, and see into the thinly veiled, wide blown shapes of your pupils. It hits him hard what it could be, and the instant he’s thought of it his own roars up inside his bones and everything changes.

Human intimacies are often made up of tongue and flesh, the latter of which he is sorely lacking. When G propositioned that the two of you be lovers, he expected you to laugh it off. This...this fluttering of your blood under the press of his fingers, this flush of heat in your cheeks, the way your breath warms his that instantly makes him want to exhale harder--it’s nothing he could have ever expected. And that’s what it is, what it could only be, a _need_ demanding to be filled.

Your mouth is dizzying in the best possible way, fogging his thoughts while sending a sharp jolt of want straight through his core. Trailing his teeth away from them is one of the most difficult things he’s ever accomplished, but it’s worth it when you gasp faintly as he moves bone across your chin, along your jawline, and meeting the curve of your neck with an inhale.

G doesn’t know when you moved your other hand to his shoulder, or when he changed position until he catches himself hovering over your form rather then next to it, but he can feel your grip through the thin cotton of his shirt, tightening, and by some marvel he’ll never understand, not pushing him away but urging him closer.

G wants it.

He parts his teeth, breathes against your skin, feels his tongue form, because dammit he may not have skin, but he things he can make up for that in other ways if he tries. And hell if he doesn’t want to try.

But this is only the second time he’s kissed you.

_“What are we, G?”_

You never told him what you wanted between the two of them, not in words. Not with a definite yes or no to one thing or another.

And G doesn’t want to potentially ruin this a second time.

Closing his mouth, G drifts achingly back, putting some small distance between the two of you, and taking you in.

Gently ruffled hair, eyelids left fluttering, and your body curled gentle towards him, the glow of the bedroom window makes your eyes shine underneath their reaching light. The color of your irises are so dark, they may as well be lakes, and those sparks of light may as well be stars hopelessly lost in their depths.

“Why did you stop,” you ask him, airy and sounding as adrift as he is in a way that’s instantly satisfying.

“you never told me what you want with me, star,” G answers, not at all intending the way his voice deepens with his wording, and distantly embarrassed upon hearing it.  

Your eyelids shutter, trying to comprehend, and he understands all too well how difficult it is to wrestle hold of coherent thought right now. But then you utter his name, begin to grin, and G nearly smirks at how amazingly wicked it looks in that moment. “Does “all of the above” count?”

G’s resulting snort is anything but attractive and he does nothing to stamp down the glee that shines in your smile as a result of it.

“you have no idea,” is the only beginning of his answer, and the press of his teeth against your lips the first of many.

 

The morning finds you quiet and waking. Laziness pulls at your muscles, and you find no reason to open your eyes, or stir much beyond a slight adjustment of posture and a quick sweep of your tongue across dry lips. Someone grumbles a breath, the pressure against your back intensifies, and you find yourself being pulled closer to something very solid.

Sunlight waits beyond your eyelids, you don’t want to open them. But G’s huff of breath plays across your cheek and you can’t resist the desire to see him.

His mouth is closed but pressed against the pillow as it is, the ever so there incline makes it appear crooked, and the image startles a near giggle from you. It gets caught in your throat, the parched state of your mouth refusing to allow it to go any further. Giving into further temptation you reach forward and smooth a hand against the side of his skull--he’s warm! The fall of the sunlight must have soaked into his very person, and your delighted at how strangely this reminds you of a coffee mug left in the sun.

“was lafin’ for?”

_Oh my god._

Nothing can stop your giggles from escaping this time, he sounds ridiculous! You try to bury them in your hand, and tears catch in the corner of your eyes as one of G’s open, his yellow disc aglow as his other socket remains pressed into the pillow. His faux smile caused by the way he fell asleep has turned absolutely genuine, and not struggling you allow G to pull you down into an embrace.

“weird human,” he mutters into your neck, magic meeting flesh and sending a shiver down your spine, making your laugh stutter, and his fingers curl against the planes of your back.

Your very clothed back, the same as G’s and the rest of your two bodies. The night previous had been a whirlwind of heat and wonder lust, ending with one of his hands tangled in your hair while his other arm brought you as close as physically possible without surrendering the halves of your Souls to one another.

Your Soul had sang at the contact, and lamented at the limitation of it. You didn’t know what anything more could have entailed that didn’t involve something more physical, but you had both heard and read stories. Bonding, the combining of two, demanding Souls. G hadn’t broached the topic, and neither had you. The last time you mentioned touching his Soul, it was on the subject of saving his father, and nothing would have G make that risk if it meant putting your life in danger.

But you wanted it, and you wondered ever more so what the experience could be like if it could be half as wonderful as kissing G. Lips or no, what G does with you borders on brain addling, you don’t think you could ever return to the former without missing the thrill of electricity that comes with his magic meeting your exhales.

“What are you thinkin’ about,” G asks you, teeth skimming between neck and shoulder, and you skim your hand over his skull while resisting asking for more.

“Just you.”

G draws away just enough to peek up at your face, “nothing good, i hope,” and you lose yourself in the clever way he grins at this, happy, endless happy, to again having not woken up alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaps never go as planned, but i can't find it in myself to complain
> 
> I've been thinking about for a long time, and I've always been afraid of dragging The Space on for too long. It still has some story left, at least twenty chapters worth, and when it concludes, I'll be moving on to other AU's. Which ones? That's up to you guys! It's been brought to my attention that you all wouldn't mind if I whipped up something for Underswap, or Underfell, and, now, Swapfell! If you have any favorites, let me know! I'll only consider what I think others might be willing to read, and the more the merrier! In the meantime, Sirius' story isn't over, and I hope you all stick around for the pivotal chapter that is Mei's demise.


	33. Of Titles, Woe to Chapter Titles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ  
> I'm sorry guys, but I've been spending a lot of time away from UT, and because of that and the low comment count for the newest chapters of both of my stories, my inspiration has been hit hard. TSB never would have gotten this far if it weren't for you guys, but I promise that this story will see it's final chapter! I love it and appreciate you guys too much for that not to happen! In the meantime, here's a new chapter! I hope you all enjoy it.

You can feel yourself smiling like an idiot when when the kiss ends, so much so that you dunk your head it a terrible attempt at hiding any evidence of it, if G’s appreciative chuckle means anything. 

“sounds like the soldier is awake,” G mummers against the smooth slope of your forehead, and lo and behold a certain someone’s voice comes echoing through his bedroom door, perfectly on cue: “SIBLINGS! IT IS TIME FOR THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS!”

“How’d you guess,” you ask genuinely, pulling away from him just enough to see the warm glow of G’s eye against the backdrop of the sunlight filled window. It creates a remarkable image you’re not sure you’ll forget for the rest of your life. His skull cloaked partially in yellow light while his smile lights in quiet contentment, a subtle sort of happiness that means the world for anyone that had gone to long without. 

The fingers of his hand cards through your hair as he replies, settling the no doubt messy state it’s in before stopping to play with the ends of several strands. “could heard the cookery jostling around from here,” he says, smile lengthening until his eyes narrow slightly. “paps always puts his heart into doing what he loves.”

“IF YOU ARE FINISHED WITH YOUR MORNING CANOODLING, I ADVISE YOU TO HURRY BEFORE IT GROWS COLD!  _ Nyeh-heeeh _ ..!”

G’s eyes widen once more as blue flushes across his cheekbones, mirroring the warmth rising swiftly up your neck. “He knows?”

His hand drops from your hair, magic softening from bone as his eye skates to the side in thought, “he was always the clever one.” With a blink his disc returns to settle on you. “Hungry?”

You answer by flipping the blanket off, sharing a grin with G as the two of you hurry out of bed. 

G stretches once his feet hit the ground, giving you the merciless experience of spotting one corner of his shirt caught in a floating rib while his shorts threaten to dip low. 

His eyes have closed briefly while you caught yourself staring, reminding yourself of a particular night some time ago in your own bedroom, but you’re quick to return his gaze when his disc appears again.

“Is that really necessary,” you have to ask, gesturing with both hands, and unable to keep the amusement from your voice as you do so with honest to god curiosity. What? A skeleton needing to stretch? Who wouldn’t be confused by that?

G drops his arms from their previous position, with one hand on the elbow of the other as he gave it a good push over his head. “gets the circulation going,” he answers, smile sharpening into something clever, and blood floods your cheeks anew. “You mean your magic?”

With his other socket still closed, he could very well be winking. “what else could there be?” The suggestion there fills your lungs with hot air, captured, and kept hold of as he opens both eyes, approaches...and walks passed. G opens the bedroom door, and with an almost dramatic sweep of his hand gestures you out first into the hall. “after you.”

_ Accursed skeleton,  _ your thoughts hiss in quiet indignation, and as incredulous you try to appear, your mouth betrays you with a smile. Into the hall you go, eyes adjusting ever so much to the faintly darker lighting, and G steps behind you.

“hey, star,” he speaks up, and you turn your chin to the left at the sound of his voice and the feeling of one of his hands gripping your elbow. Your head tilts up naturally to meet his eyes but no sooner than it does is his tilting down, teeth moving in close until a now wonderfully familiar and yet still so exciting new brush of warmth is meeting your lips. Your eyelids fall to half mast to match his own, a shiver of pleasure trailing across the fine hairs of your body, and faintly you smell the wonderful haze of petrichor. There’s movement along the inside of your elbow, his thumb smoothing across that small press of skin. 

The moment stretches onto time suspending oblivion, but when he moves away you feel as though it was far too short for your taste. His bedroom still waits nearby, it would be easy to return there, and something about the way he’s looking at you lets you know he probably wouldn’t object terribly. 

But there are other smells: the plush scent of pancakes, the rich sharpness of partially burned chocolate chips, perfumating coffee in all it’s wonderful glory, and a morning wearing into the early afternoon. It’s in the way the light slants into the living room when both you and G emerge from the hallway, sharing the same uptilt of a grin as the sounds of Papyrus’ ruckus in the kitchen floods into the open area. Barefooted, bones and skin on bare wooden floors, the two of you see him there in his chair near the stove, a spatula raised like a sword in one hand as he turns about and catches you in his oval-eyed sights.

“BROTHER! NEW SIBLING! YOU’VE FINALLY ARRIVED AND NOT A MOMENT TOO LATE!” Papyrus’ warm shout is positively infectious, you feel your previous smile grow significantly at just the sight of the skeleton. Would it always be so wonderful to be greeted by someone so full of utter sunshine? 

_ Probably not _ , you think giddily, laughing when he immediately wheels himself over to wrap his bony arms around you in one powerful shove of his hands. His hug is tight, but not uncomfortably so, and as dark as his sockets may naturally be, they seem to contain all the world’s light within them when he pulls back to share his brilliant, toothy grin with you again. 

“I HOPE MY BROTHER ISN’T LETTING HIS TERRIBLE SLEEPING HABITS RUB OFF ON YOU! I CAN’T BE THE ONLY MEMBER OF THIS FAMILY WITH A KNACK FOR PUNCTUALITY,” he declares,  _ punctuating _ his statement with a haughty  _ nyeh  _ that’s made more comical by the posing, anime penguin on his shirt, the words “COOL DOOD” in a bubble coming from it’s beak. He must have gotten it from Undyne or Alphys, but it’s absolutely adorable.

“hey, pot,” G speaks, drawing your attention and to his position as he sits down at the dining room table a few step away. Crossing one leg over the other’s knee, G leans back in his chair with the airs of a cat in the sun, one arm on the table while the other bends over the back of his seat. “who’s the brother that insists breakfast can _ only _ ever be made just after waking up? and look at the time.”

G points a finger over towards the nearest window, and Papyrus and you both look to see the glow of light beyond the glass giving the early noon hour away. You turn your chins back to him at the same time, and Papyrus appears utterly betrayed. You have to fight back the laugh in your chest as he scrambles to make an excuse, the flit of G’s disc to you and back to his brother letting you know that it wasn’t missed. 

“IT’S THE ATMOSPHERE, OF COURSE!” Papyrus throws up his hands, kitchen utensil waving, and he looks between you both with an altogether straight set of his narrow spine: there’s no way Papyrus is backing down from this and letting G win. “THE CHANGE FROM THE UNDERGROUND TO THE SURFACE HAS THROWN ME FOR A LOOP! EVEN THE GREAT PAPYRUS MUST ADMIT THAT HE IS SOMETIMES HELPLESS TO THE EFFECTS OF ACCLIMATING TO A NEW ENVIRONMENT,” he starts to turn in his chair, but points a finger at you both. “BUT ONLY JUST!”

“‘course, paps,” G aquiscends with a languid set of teeth, bringing up his mug to his mouth without further argument in the matter.  _ Wait-. _

“When did you…” you motion to his mug and move around him, taking up a chair of you own that you don’t immediately recognize as the one you used the morning before until you’re there. 

G’s sockets widen and he wiggles the phalanges of his free hands, mouthing with parting teeth the word “magic” and his eyes crinkling at their corners when you swat at his nearby shoulder. G snickers quietly--and with another wave of his hand a mug from the counter in the kitchen lifts itself up, faintly glowing blue as it makes it’s way over and rests in front of you. The brown liquid inside has been diluted with white, and without having to take a drink you know it has the cream and three sugars you normally prefer.

“How did he  _ know _ ,” you have to ask G, watching the dancing shoulders of the youngest brother as he does an amazing job at flipping a pancake with his spatula from a shining skillet to a plate beside the stove. 

“he wanted to know everything i did about you,” G replies, taking a sip of his own mug, straight black with no additives, and appears sheepish with a blink away of his eye when your eyebrows lift. “uh, yeah, been awhile. good memory, right,” he taps at his skull, but doesn’t say anything further. 

You can’t even remember when it was that you told him about what you like in your coffee. One of the dozen times you had lunch during work, more than likely, but all that senseless rambling of yours had to run together, right?  _ Of course his is easy to remember _ , you try to tell yourself as by way of an excuse. 

But you know that this isn’t the whole truth.

As you listen to the brothers this becomes all the more apparent. Papyrus is chattering in a flourish of energy around the kitchen that you can only ever envy, while G replies in his usual rich baritone with a casual air that’s so dissimilar to his brother’s it’s hilarious. 

You’re still getting used to them, even G, being apart of your life. After the loss of Aludra, and even before then, you never thought it would be possible to find a family you would really belong to. You’ve reiterated yourself enough times perhaps on this but, you really want them to be apart of your life. You want to know everything about them, all of their loves and hates, their dreams and their failures, whatever they have to give and whatever they want to create in the time to come. Just watching them interact makes you happy, and that you actually have the chance to be apart of something like this lends an emotion that is near to indescribable for you. But you don’t want to let it go, not it, and not them either. 

The two brothers catch you watching as Papyrus wheels over, hands so large they can easily balance three plates, silverware arranged atop each and waiting. The pancakes smell wonderful, and you were right! there are bits of chocolate dotting each of the three piles shared between the three of you. But try as you might to distract yourself with the airy cakes on your plate, the arrangement of orange juice and coffee on the table, and the remaining threads of sleep clinging to your brain, the boys are impossible to ignore.

“What,” you ask with a laugh in your voice, putting down your fork before you have a chance to dig in and meeting the two satisfied smiles of a pair of skeletons. Well, satisfied for G anyways, Papyrus on the other hand looks to be  _ vibrating _ with excitement. 

“AFTER ALL THIS TIME I JUST CAN’T HELP MYSELF,” he nearly crows, and maneuvering with a speed you shamefully wouldn’t expect from a gangly someone sans muscles and chair bound Papyrus has moved between you and G, his arms going up, and the happy monster squeezing you both to his sides. “YOU BOTH LOOK SO HAPPY AND NOTHING’S BETTER THAN SEEING FAMILY OVERJOYED WITH LOVE!”

“you kiddin’, paps? how can anyone be unhappy with the coolest brother in town around,” G asks with his cheek still pressed against Papyrus’ skull, seemingly taking it all in stride and still holding his coffee to boot while you're giddy with emotion. 

Papyrus releases you both with G’s reply, grinning coyly in the other’s direction. “DON’T THINK I HAVEN’T SEEN WHAT’S HAPPENING BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU, BROTHER! I KNOW A ROMANCE IN FULL BLOOM WHEN I SEE ONE!” 

Avoiding acknowledging the rush of blood to your face is an utter waste of time but enjoying the flush of blue across G’s face makes it bearable to say the least. He’s pretty good at not appearing rattled by Papyrus’ stellar perception skills on the surface, but his pretty well defined cheekbones aren’t the only signs of warmth you pick up from his end. It’s in focus of his eyes when they meet yours, the brush of his long leg under the table after a hesitant moment, and his own Soul glowing in response. 

But Papyrus knows him better than this, he doesn’t need a magical destined connection with his brother to totally fail at being fooled by G’s relaxed lean into his chair. Or maybe the tallest skeleton brother always looks that sly, who knows. 

That slyness lasts for all of a minute before he’s back to jittering in his seat, though, and when his sockets zero in on you, you know G’s not alone in this. “WHEN I HEARD FROM GASTER THAT MY BROTHER HAD FOUND SOMEONE TO MAKE HIM HAPPY I COULDN’T WAIT TO WAKE UP!” He stops himself for a moment, quitely considering, “Not that there weren’t plenty of other things to go along with it, but that was certainly near the top of the list!”

“wings?” G’s smile wavers at this, his interest flaring with your own, and the two of you trade glances. “what’d the old man have to say about me n’ siri?”

“ONLY THAT THE TWO OF YOU WERE PERFECT FOR EACHOTHER! PERFECT IN THE SENSE THAT YOU SEEMED TO BE TWO BUMBLING WHIMSUNS TRYING TO SAY THE RIGHT THE THING BUT GETTING IT ALL WRONG. WELL,” Papyrus side-eyes G, patting the other skeleton’s shoulder good naturedly, “THAT LAST PART WAS MOSTLY YOU BROTHER, BUT IT WAS ALL MADE UP FOR IN THE END!” Dropping his hand, Papyrus actually looks at you more seriously, “BUT HE TOLD ME THAT WHILE MY BROTHER WAS SO BUSY TRYING TO FIND A WAY TO FIX THINGS HE ACTUALLY MET SOMEONE HERE ON THE SURFACE TO HELP MOTIVATE HIM! IT WASN’T JUST ABOUT TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR MISTAKES THAT WEREN’T HIS FAULT, OR BURYING HIMSELF IN ALL THE GUILT ALL OF THAT BROUGHT, FOR ONCE HE HAD SOMETHING AND SOMEONE ELSE TO LOOK FORWARD TO! AND TO SEE THE TWO OF YOU HOLDING HANDS,” he presses his hands against his cheeks, eyes a shine with stars, “IT’S LIKE EVERY CHEESY MTT ROM-COM I’VE EVER LOVED COME TRUE!”

“isn’t that all of his movies, paps,” G mutters dryly, his mood dampening lightly with the mention of his past regrets and how obviously he doesn’t agree with his brother about them. But his smile hasn’t entirely gone, and you know Papyrus’ presence must be helping. 

“HE COULDN’T EVEN SEE THE STARS FOR ALL THEIR SPLENDOR,” Papyrus presses on, caught up in the moment and not hearing G’s comment, “UNTIL THE RIGHT ONE FELL FROM THE HEAVENS AND LANDED DIRECTLY INTO HIS HEART!” Papyrus finishes with a press of his hands in the middle of his chest, a tear in the corner of his eye you  _ think _ is fake. 

This is by far the corniest thing you’ve ever heard anyone say in your entire life and with anyone else it wouldn’t be nearly as endearing. Also, was that a  _ pun? _

“ _ nice one _ , bro,” G says brightly, Papyrus preening at the compliment, “you must have taken a real  _ shine _ to that dating manual if you're popping out one-liners like that.”

“OF-wait,” Papyrus snaps back to the earth, sockets narrowing at his brother dangerously. “DON’T YOU START THAT TOM FOOLERY WITH ME, BROTHER!”

“Come on, Papyrus,” you speak up, garnering both of their attention, G’s disc already twinkling in it’s socket. “Don’t be hard on G, it’s what you wished for, afterall.”

G  _ bursts _ into laughter, Papyrus positively  _ howling _ with anguish as he clutches his skull and casts his crying eyes towards the heavens: “NO! WHAT HAVE I DONE,” his chin dips towards his chest, lights spinning in his skull, “MY DEAR BROTHER HAS FINALLY  _ FALLEN _ IN LOVE BUT AT WHAT COST?”

G starts choking on the air, skull flushed blue all over again, and you really don’t know how to help a skeleton that suddenly isn’t  _ breathing _ correctly. But Papyrus just plows on while all you can do is pat at his shaking shoulders lamely and hope that the earth opens up to swallow you whole soon.

“WHATEVER DID I DO TO EARN THE IRE OF TWO PUN MASTERS,” Papyrus wails, “THERE’S ONLY ONE THING I CAN DO IN RETALIATION: EMBARRASS THEM BOTH TO MY  _ FULLEST _ EXTENT EVERYTIME THEY INSIST ON  _ SHOOTING _ OFF THEIR MOUTHS UNTIL THERE’S NOTHING LEFT OF THE SUN BUT STARDUST!”

The tears in G’s sockets are definitely real once he manages to get ahold of himself, smiling as if exhausted by Papyrus’ tirade. Paps on the other hand looks personally offended by what came out of his own mouth and sits sullenly, arms crossed but eyes glowing and entirely giving himself away. “holy shit, i think this is the best day of my life,” G laughs, Papyrus’ scowl twitching at the sound. 

 

Breakfast moves on, more or less, into the actual breakfast part of the sit down, with both you and G praising Papyrus’ cooking until the puns are forgotten and forgiven. For the most part. What you have to say about his pancakes are entirely honest, however. They’re so,  _ so _ good. Fluffy, buttery, and filled with the right amount of chips to make them sweet but not too overpowering--albeit it takes a lot of chocolate for that to happen, admittedly-- you can definitely say they’re the best you’ve had since Lulu died. 

When mom was gone and your dad started losing his footing, Aludra had been there to take up the reins and do what he could. Overtime he’d gotten to be a pretty decent cook, not to mention a strict one at that: three square meals a day, no exceptions if he could help it, but a fast food break wasn’t out of the question. Some of your best memories with him were spent listening to him play his guitar while Chinese takeout sat unfolded on the floor in that same study you had dreamed about the other night…

But Papyrus’ food is literally magic, imbued with all of his loving intent towards you and G, and well-made to start with from scratch. He’d even taken the time to consider your meal preferences, too, actually appearing fascinated when he asked about you being a vegetarian. 

“Aludra had a severe allergy to basically every kind of meat: poultry, pork, beef, all of them, almost,” you explain, Papyrus’ humming as he listens. “Fish was okay, but I don’t like it so we cut that out, too.”

“‘coulda picked it up again after,” G says, not as a suggestion, but more to keep the conversation going. He’s totally focused on the subject, and you remember what he said the night before: G wanted to get to know you, really, and that meant learning about Aludra, too. Smothering the blush that threatens to rise from his attentiveness with sheer will power, you nod. 

“I could have, but at that point it had become a habit, and the benefits sort of outweigh the cost,” you say, almost embarrassed. One of these days you’ll get used to talking about yourself, but this is definitely something you’ve heard a lot of criticism over, although usually not directed at yourself. “With the environment how it is, and what magical food can offer, it’s pretty important to consider right now. I think. For humans, I mean.”

“al was pretty psyched about what we can do now that we’re up here,” G inputs, and the bit of awkwardness that was there in your chest before smooths away. “sorta makes it easier to integrate, too, if we have something the people want.”

“ALTHOUGH YOU HAVE A POINT BROTHER, WE HAVE TO REMEMBER TO LOOK ON THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF THINGS! AFTER ALL THESE YEARS WE’VE FINALLY COME TO THE WORLD ABOVE, AND FROM THIS POINT ON WE CAN ONLY HELP MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR ALL OF US IF WE TRY!” 

G’s brow lifts, a flicker of surprise passing over his face, and then it’s gone, blanketed with the same easy smile he’s worn since entering the kitchen. “you’re right, paps. compromise is what got us out of the underground to begin with,” his eye blinks over to you, “n’ siri here’s a good example of how great things can be when they go right.”

Papyrus grins cheekily, and he’s got a lot to work with. You fight the urge to fidget with the way he watches you, almost as if he can see the wings aflutter in your stomach at G’s comment. It’s a wonderful, nervous feeling, one you simultaneously wish would quiet down and remain forever; when G’s free hand meets yours under the table, the juxtaposing existence of both desires increase remarkably.

Remarkably enough that it breaks through G’s exterior, the skeleton blushing until he tries to hide it behind a pull of his coffee. Wait, is his connection with you the reason why this keeps happening to him? The very idea is embarrassing! 

 

Papyrus doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s absolutely loving it. He doesn’t have a lot of experience with humans, outside of the small human Frisk of course, but that his brother just keeps turning bluer with every deepening of the red of your face can  _ only _ be a good thing. The both of you are still smiling, after all, even if there is a wonderful kind of horror in both of your expressions intertwined with that same giddy wonderfulness. Yes, this is most certainly a good thing, and smiling himself as he looks between the two of you only seems to make it worse! 

Papyrus has no mercy to share for his older brother, who groans into the crook of his arm while still holding his coffee, and you try to smother your mouth as much as you can. 

It’s impossible, he can’t stop himself from laughing, and he’s not going to try. It has a domino affect, and soon all of them are chuckling like a bunch of buffoons.

Breakfast is everything he missed about it in the Underground, before they were both too distracted with work and finding someway out to have a proper meal together. But everything about waking up has proven to be a dream come true, and the very thought of having a thousand and more countless mornings too look forward to with his brother again is spectacular! And now he has you, too. 

You, the small human that makes his brother’s Soul shine and his smile a constant. You, with your sweet, eager grins that appear everytime Papyrus meets your eyes. He nearly leaps out of his seat when you take your first few bites of his prepared meal and hum with obvious satisfaction, but doesn’t hesitate to nod: he understands perfectly, pride alighting his own Soul alongside sparks of glee. He was hoping you would like his cooking, he’s always wanted to share his confections with another human, and nothing means more to him then seeing his family happy. 

But time waits for no man, and all of you perk up in attention when his brother’s phone goes off in G’s short pockets. He puts his fork down to answer it with his right hand, his dominant side occupied still with a certain someone--you!--and interest appears in his now singular eye when he looks down upon it.

Without answering Papyrus and your questioning stares, he picks up the call, both of your curiosity soon partially sated when he speaks to the person on the other side: “hey, doc, what’s up?”

_ “G, g-good morning! I hope I’m not interrupting anything,”  _ Doctor Alphys’ voice manages to reach Papyrus’ magical field of hearing, sounding as flustered as always.

“nah, just eatin’ with paps n’ siri. here, i’ll put you on speaker.”

The doctor manages to stutter a reply before G is sitting his phone down near the center of the table, a tap of his finger making Alphys’ answer much easier to hear. “Oh-h it’s okay-!”

Papyrus immediately goes in for a hello: “DOCTOR ALPHYS! GOOD MORNING,” he calls out to the phone, lifting himself up in his chair. 

“P- _ Papyrus!”  _ Alphys exclaims in surprise, clearly unprepared for the exuberance of his early morning affections, and there’s some sort of clatter on the other end of the line. Did she drop her phone? How clumsy, he hopes it wasn’t expensive! “P-papyrus! Good morning,” she manages to finally say, her voice growing louder again as she picks it up. 

“Good morning, Doctor Alphys,” you say brightly from your side of the table to the phone before you, earning a chuckle from his brother. 

“Sirius Jones, morning! I mean, good morning! Are you okay? Are-are you both feeling better?”

“ARE YOU KIDDING? I’VE NEVER FELT MORE ALIVE! Well, maybe that time Undyne tossed me off the side of Waterfall on a dare-.”

“what.”

“BUT THIS IS DEFINITELY A CLOSE SECOND,” Papyrus declares, his fists in the air, magic coursing through his every limb, and ready to get up and  _ run.  _ Dance. Fight for his very life, even!

“That’s g-good! Sirius?” Alphys asks in question, and you look away from his brothers narrowed, distracted eyes, hand still patting the one G now has curled on the table as you smile back towards the phone. 

“I’m great! We all slept in and Paps made some awesome pancakes!”

“SLEPT IN? DOCTOR, SIRIUS IS MERELY EMBELLISHING ON THE STORY! WHILE MY COOKING IS MOST FANTASTIC INDEED, I WAS MERELY RESTING...WITH MY EYES SHUT...FOR SEVERAL HOURS BEYOND MY TYPICAL WAKE UP PERIOD.”

“paps was dead to the world, all that’s left is bone now, i’m afraid,” G tsk’s, shaking his head sympathetically. 

“WE ARE LITERALLY SKELETONS.”

“that’s what i said.”

“I-I’m glad to hear that you guys are feeling better,” Alphys interjects, “But I’m sorry, I was wondering G if you would like to proceed with testing as planned?”

“Testing,” you ask aloud, looking at the eldest brother. His brother’s expression dims faintly, growing more serious in place of his earlier amusement. 

“it’s about gaster,” he begins, pausing briefly after. “gaster and myself. i wanna get a good look at my soul and see how it compares to the state of what was taken from paps. since you both woke up i’ve, uh, been kind of preoccupied.” G scratches at the back of his skull in near to what could be embarrassment, but the heaviness of the subject keeps it from being a light gesture. 

Papyrus feels the mood of the room likewise thicken, your shoulders dropping faintly as the monster catches the way your eyes fall to G’s chest in quiet thought. 

There’s so much about what the two of you’ve been talking about that he’s missed, and it doesn’t someone with so astute a mind to pick up how utterly troubling it is for you both. He understands, he’s worried, too. But it’s like he said previously, only striding determined towards their goals would result in the best outcome! 

“THAT’S A BRILLIANT IDEA, BROTHER,” he states, shattering the silence with gleam of his pearlescent teeth. Both G and their dear human appear surprised by his burst of energy. Really, now, they should expect such level of unrequited spontaneity! “THE MORE PREPARATION MADE FOR THE HEALTHY RECOVERY OF YOUR SOUL AND THE WONDERFUL REUNION THAT WILL BE WITH OUR VERY REAL FORMER ROYAL SCIENTIST FATHER THE MORE ASSURED WE CAN BE THAT EVERYTHING WILL WORK OUT IN THE END! EVERY OPTION MUST BE CONSIDERED! EVER CORNER OF THIS QUADRY TACKLED AND CHALLENGED TO ITS FULLEST EXTENT!” 

 

G lets out a laugh of disbelief, the rigid line of his skull softening as you meet his eyes and share the same glance after Papyrus’ speech.  How the skeleton monster managed to bounce back so easily, you’ll never in a million years understand, but it’s effective. Maybe it was all the shouting, the  _ fear _ just need to be scared away from you both. Or maybe it’s just Papyrus, a living example of how your magic and G’s preservation can turn all of this around. 

Time, that’s what G asked you for. Time to do what he can before your newfound power is the only means to make things right. You don’t know what that is anymore, what’s right, or wrong, or the better outcome of all things. But sulking about it hadn’t helped, it never would. 

So, maybe you could be like Papyrus.

“you’re right, paps,” G is saying, stand up from his chair before he leans in closer to the phone. “be right over, alph. keep the machines hot.”

“Right! Goodbye, everyone! ...except you, G, of course...” 

“GOODBYE, DOCTOR!” Papyrus’ chirp is the last thing the doctor hears, G tapping the call closed before scooping it up.

“Should we go,” you ask up to him, and your mind stutters when he bends down, his teeth brushing close to the slope of your forehead. The contact is close enough that you feel the brush of his magic, like a soft peck on your skin, and when he pulls away his eyes are shuttered. 

Yeah, you understand perfectly.

“hang tight for today. alph n’ i gotta lot to do, and things aren’t too thrilling when you’re reading data all day,” he says, stepping away quickly until he’s nearly to the bedroom hallway. “that’s a lie, i love my job,” G’s smile widens into playfulness, his eye shining in his skull, but then he’s turning and back to hurrying away.

You look away with his departure, grinning at Papyrus with your hands in your lap, “Your brother’s a nerd.”

“I KNOW! HE USED TO KEEP A QUANTUM PHYSICS BOOK INSIDE A JOKE BOOK INSIDE A QUANTUM PHYSICS BOOK INSIDE YET ANOTHER JOKE BOOK IN OUR LIVING ROOM.”

Your face twists in thought, “Somehow I think that sums him up perfectly. Also, how?  _ Can he shrink things, too?” _

“I THINK THEY WERE THINGS HE BOUGHT SPECIFICALLY TO MAKE THAT JOKE,” Papyrus answers, rubbing at his chin as he momentarily gives it some real thought. “BUT MY BROTHER CAN DO ANYTHING HE PUTS HIS MIND TO! EVEN IF THAT MEANS DOING NOTHING AT ALL!”

There’s a slight hint of sarcasm there that you start to question, but then decide against it. “I”ll be right back.” Standing up, you head out of the room and after G. You're more than ready to quiz him on his possible magical ability at sizing down things-and why not? If he can displace matter and manipulate gravity, why not be capable of shrinking or growing random objects? If he could sift through time, you may as well be dating a god!  _ You! _

_ Yes, me, a character that works at a magical bookshop. I’m like every beige leading character in every YA novel ever.  _ Try as you might, you can’t find yourself making it out as dry as it should be in your mind. Beige leading characters always wind up with amazing people living amazing adventures, and how had your life turned out so far? Exactly! 

_ I even get the hot love interest,  _ you smirk, widening the tiny crack that is the opening of his door until it’s open in full. 

G turns to look over his shoulder. His hands are at is sides,  _ no _ , they’re finishing pulling a pair of jeans over the bare bone of his hips. His shirt falls over the remainder of their sloping, white arches, and G finishes with a pull of the waist as he buttons them closed. He does this without having to pay any attention, the mild shock of your appearance focused solely on your person. 

“hey, siri,” G says smoothly, his mouth sinking into a lazy scrawl of a smile. Meanwhile, you just stand there, mouth almost gaping--probably, most definitely gaping--and only \abruptly start to pull the door closed once you reach your senses: “Sorry!”

“hold up.” G’s quick laugh stops you in place, his hand going up to rest on the door’s frame as he looks down into eyes, his sockets full of a mirth that’s warm and sweet, like hot chocolate on a cold day. “it’s okay, nothin’ to see here,” he waves at his abdomen without lifting his shirt, but you already know what he’s getting at: “all i’ve got on me is skin and bone. sans the skin, remember?”

“Right, that’ll be my job,” is out before you can help yourself, and you hands go up to run in embarrassment across your face at the very sound of... _ whatever that was _ . “ _ Oh my god _ , I mean-.”

G’s fingers pull at your wrists, bringing your pitiful shield down, and just in time to see his disc flash like flint struck against steel. “i know exactly,” he’s saying, low, and quiet, teeth bending down close to your mouth. They stop just short of your lips reaching him, he blinks, and retreats back a small amount that manages to echo like a chasm. 

Doubt hovers in his eyes, and a small, weak part of you worries that it’s because it’s you he has in his sights. After last night, you’d think you’d never doubt this, but it’s been twenty-three years without a hint of dating experience on your end, after all. Voices like that will take time to smother.

“seriously don’t understand how someone like you could see the appeal,” G speaks up, curving your paranoia with confusion until he elaborates. “you humans, all soft curves and warm skin. sure you don’t wanna call this platonic and find someone else to get tounge tied with?”

The humor in his gaze is blunted, and you feel it, that same worry echoed from his own Soul, hovering unseen in his chest. It’s amazing how strong the connection has gotten for you to feel something so subtle, and without hesitation you raise your hand, touching it to the front of his shirt. Splaying your fingers across the surface of the fabric, you feel the press of his ribs on the other side, G’s inhalation causing them to expand ever so much. 

“I wish you could have read my thoughts the first time we met,” you speak quietly, but clearly, aware of the burning of his eye as he watches you steadily. When you look up into his face and see his steady, unblinking stare, you can’t help but smile at the disbelief in his expression. Is this how you looked the night before, when he told you he wanted to be everything you could ever want? 

“Even if we weren’t Soulmates, nothing could have changed how impossible I thought you were. In the snow, under the streetlamp, your very existence was incredible, G. You still are,” you say, running your other hand up his chest and to his face, cradling his cheek bone and delighting in the way he leans into you touch, melting into the intimacy of the contact. “It’s only gotten worse since then.”

G’s chin tilts down, narrowing the gap between your mouth and his, and that breath in his bones comes out as a breathy and light, “what’s that?”

“My complete and utter physical attraction to you,” is your answer, and you can  _ taste _ the want in the air, weighing down every inch of your being, urging you to propel yourself forward-.

“SIBLING SIRIUS!”

G jolts away from you like a cat caught in a sudden rainstorm, and you react exactly the same way, a jolt of pain hitting you square in the back from your attempt at escaping by backing directly into the door knob behind you. 

When the devil did you even _ start _ closing the door?

Hissing through your teeth, you’re unable to wave off G’s silent face of worry at your current, slightly hunched figure, his hands in the air as if he doesn’t know where exactly they should go to make things better.

“IT’S AN UNKNOWN NUMBER, SHOULD I ANSWER AND ASK TO CALL BACK? SIBLING?”

Standing up straight, you wince through the ache in your spine, already private bemoaning the massive bruise that’s bound to already be forming.

“let me take a look-,” G asks, already reaching, and you shake your head. “No, it’s nothing, I think I’m fine.”

“hey, please, just a sec?” 

His wide eyes give you pause, and you can’t help it, already starting to turn as you’re speaking, “Okay-.”

“be right there, paps!” Narrowing your eyes, you feel the swatch of skin, more than a little aware of the heat building up beneath the very spot that you hurt, a hurt that’s already starting to fade into nothing. “right here,” G asks, holding your raised shirt in one hand while he finds the spot you’re so focused on. Nudging away your fingers, you feel as G’s thumb brushes over the area. 

“bit red back here, heh,” he says, laugh sounding distracted. “hey, looks like it’s going away.”

“I don’t feel anything.”

“wait, you mean the pain?”

“Yeah, I mean I can feel you, but it’s already gone.”

“DID SOMETHING HAPPEN,” Papyrus’ voice comes from the otherside of the door, and the both you step away so it can be pulled open, the youngest brother on the other side and appearing curious. That curiosity intensifies when he sees how amazed the two of you are over what just happened. “HUMAN SIBLING, ARE YOU ALRIGHT? YOU BOTH LOOK LIKE YOU JUST DISCOVERED THAT SKELETONS CAN FLY.”

“no, but technically-,” G starts, a smirk on his face as he glances at you, but his comment is firmly cut off by a shove to his shoulder. Papyrus does  _ not _ need to know about you freaking out over G’s many talents. “it’s siri, turns out her healing powers may have leveled up.”

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN EXACTLY?”

“I may have accidentally backed into the doorknob,” you try to explain, cringing out of embarrassment for what had just happened.  _ Bone-blocked by my Soulmate’s younger brother: is that going to be a thing? Also G, please that your sense of humor back. _

“WHAT? ARE YOU OKAY?” You try to calm down Papyrus’ panic stricken appearance as soon as it appears: “Yes! I’m okay, that’s what G was saying. The pain’s completely gone!”

“ARE YOU SURE? MAYBE I SHOULD LOOK.”

“No, it’s cool, really,” you reply, unable to help how amusing his concern is under the circumstances. You just had a worrywart skeleton hovering over you, after all. The anxiety over your well-being is more than a little mood lifting, to say the least. “The spot on my back just felt really warm and the pain was just gone. Poof!”

“her magic literally has no chill.”

You and Papyrus share a really intense sibling-bonding moment that involves judging G at exactly the same time with exactly the same amount of visible offense taken. 

G retreats back, holding his hands up in surrender. “sorry, i handle crisis as well as i do my sock drawer.”

“YOU LEFT THE SAME SOCK ON OUR LIVING ROOM FLOOR FOR EIGHT MONTHS UNTIL FRISK BROKE THE BARRIER. I THINK IT WOULD HAVE STAYED THERE OTHERWISE FOR THE REST OF TIME, LANGUISHING IN IT’S OWN EXISTENCE.”

“i’ve having second thoughts, star, that sock may have been my sole mate, after all,” G’s smirk is rueful, but there’s no mistaking that spark that shines back at you. Papyrus doesn’t even bother to deign G with an angry retort, he just turns around, and leaves the room entirely. 

“do you think he’ll ever foot-give me?”

“No, and I’ll not either with how awful that joke smelled,” is your quick reply, and you leave to go down the hall. All pretense of regret wipes itself clear from G’s expression. He may as well be a star himself with how bright his smile is now, and you can’t help but stop, look back, and continue: “In that case, I think you’re right! Congratulations!”

G’s burst of laughter follows you all the way back to the living room, and although you refuse to turn around and let him see your preening countenance, Papyrus is more then willing to give a thumbs up from the table. 

He has to see your surprise, and answers for himself while beginning to scoop up the used dishes from the table, still smeared with syrup. “I MAY NOT LIKE MY BROTHER’S METHOD OF TOMFOOLERY, BUT ANY CHANCE I CAN TAKE AT TURNING IT BACK ON HIS HEAD IS WORTH THE AGONY OF SELF-DEPRECATION SUCH WORD GAMES ARE ALWAYS SURE TO CAUSE!”

“Are you sure,” you have to ask, lifting a sceptical brow while hiding a smirk of your own.

“NO, BUT  _ HE _ DOESN’T HAVE TO KNOW THAT,” Papyrus replies, and turns his head pompously, eyes closed, chin high, and wheeling off to the kitchen while carrying his stack without trouble. 

Feeling altogether useless, you bounce over to the table to grab the remaining cutlery, the two empty coffee mugs, and Papyrus’ now orange juice deprived glass. 

G decides to appear at your elbow just as your picking it all up, “what was that gently shouted that i definitely missed hearing,” he asks, grabbing the syrup bottle and following after to the kitchen. Papyrus glows when you join your dishes with his in the sink, hot water already running for a thorough scrubbing. There’s a dishwasher available, but Paps doesn’t seem to be the type to do anything halfway if he can help it. 

“THAT YOU’RE MY FAVORITE OLDER BROTHER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AND IF YOU DON’T COME BACK FOR LUNCH, ER, DINNER LATER ON I’LL BE VERY DISAPPOINTED,” Papyrus tells the other brother, voice turning authoritative and only stumbling momentarily along the way. He really isn’t used to this sleeping in thing.

“i gotcha, paps,” G’s replies, face absolutely found, and swoops over to his brother’s chair. He doesn’t need to bend down to give the other skeleton a hug, and it’s the first you’ve seen that Papyrus hasn’t initiated first. Paps returns it eagerly, his eyes crinkling closed, and his smile picking a few hundred more kilowatts of energy. G’s connection to your Soul is filled with that same love, and your eyes burn faintly at the feeling of it. Emotion rolling in heavy and thick, you lean against the counter and enjoy the sight of them together. It’s a short moment, but for two people who only days ago couldn’t be sure they would ever hold each other again, it’s the entire world. When G pulls away they share a smile that makes your heartache.

Aludra looked that way at you once, when you left for college and the two of you said goodbye in person for the last time.

“Six eighty on the dot?”

“YOU KNOW IT, BROTHER!”

_ Am I missing something? _ You start to ask but G is there to halt that thought in place, and as he takes one of your hands in his you’re not altogether upset about the abrupt shift in your attention. 

“sorry, i can’t stay to help with the dishes.”

“LIES! MY BROTHER WOULD SOONER FLING HIMSELF INTO THE VOID THEN CLEAN CUTLERY!”

“only because you enjoy doing it yourself so much.”

“THAT IS ALSO TRUE!”

Papyrus resumes his scrubbing and G turns back to you as your giggling dies off. “walk me to the door?”

The question causes your brow to lift--couldn’t he teleport out?--but you follow along at his side nonetheless. At the front door of his apartment you can hear the running of water, and the chirping of birds outside the living room window. Papyrus has started to sing something reminiscent of opera and both of you are laughing by the time you’re there. 

“mind hanging out with paps today?”

“That maybe the strangest thing anyone has ever asked me.”

“i was thinkin’ the same thing the second i said it,” G confesses, sharing in your amusement. “but, uh, me at the lab with alph? don’t want to think i’m excluding you from trying to figure this out.”

_ Oh _ .

“you’re a strong person, siri,” G says seriously then, the lilt of his mouth still present but more subdued now you realize with the sincerity he’s trying to convey to you. And strong? When had anyone told you that? 

_ Aludra was strong. _

Your mother had said that. Your mother and father. His classmates who were both afraid and in admiration of his stoic personality and sharp gaze. It held him up when your parents passed, when it was the two of you against the world. But it was all him, it always had been. 

You had never thought the same of yourself. 

“dunno if you believe that yet, but what you’ve done has been pretty damn amazing. you’ve helped me realize how much of a relief it is not to do this alone,” his eyes harden briefly, and you squeeze at the hand still holding his on reflex. “and i wanna contribute in the way i can. i’ll look at the data, run some tests. with the way things are now, could be a lot of other options out there. and when we’re sure you’re a hundred percent, you can stop by and we’ll see what that magic of yours can do.” 

The last part is said with such enthusiasm you know he’s excited to see what that could entail, and you can’t help but want to pick on him for it. “I thought you said you were worried,” you say, but keep your tone light, honestly curious about the change. 

“yeah…,” his disc flits away for a moment in his chagrin, “the actual skin to soul contact part? not something i like to consider. now doing something similar to your transference of magic to gaster’s soul container...that could hold some merit.” His regard falls to the wayside as he considers this, all manner of possibilities probably flitting through his mind right now.

_ He’s so cute when he gets like this, sometimes I wish we could read each other’s thoughts. _

But that...that requires a level of intimacy you’re not sure you’re ready for. Or sure would be technically  _ safe _ .  

_ If skin to soul contact is a no go, soul to soul is a definite negative.  _

Soul Bonding on that level wasn’t something you weren’t even capable of doing until meeting a monster, but the idea that that door could be closed now forever after having just been discovered...

There’s contact with your other hand, and you feel G take it as you catch his notice again. His eyes have grown soft, the lantern of light in his skull searching your gaze for answers. 

“we’ll figure this out somehow,” he says, and you know he means it.

“And then...we have the rest of our lives to work out everything else,” you finish, maybe a little suddenly. Maybe too quickly, or too rashly, or with a little too much honest hope in your heart.

But when the line of his teeth flares into a grin, you can’t regret saying as much. No matter how much your stomach flops or your blood thrums underneath your skin at the very contact of his bone fingers holding yours of flesh and sinew. 

When he leans down to you it’s with a question in his gaze, although you think there may never come a day that he needs to ask, that he does at all means so much that you can’t help but comply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like the chapter? Hate it with every inch of your being? Leave a :D below!  
> Here's a link to the stories I could work on next if anyone of you guys are interested!  
> http://treacherousthoughts.tumblr.com/post/172513749441

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist that helped inspire this story:  
> https://open.spotify.com/user/12120420348/playlist/4WgdSv7PFvmAIq8ZtBuuQN  
> Follow me in the meantime at treacherousthoughts.tumblr.com, I'd love to see you guys there!
> 
> Fan-art for this story:
> 
> **letsallbecalmchaps**  
>  So cool!!!!! So awesome!!! (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧  
> -http://letsallbecalmchaps.tumblr.com/post/155075782941/treacherousthoughts-for-the-new-chapter-g-is-not (end of ch. 12)  
> -http://letsallbecalmchaps.tumblr.com/post/155093986596/for-treacherousthoughts (ch. 1)  
> -http://letsallbecalmchaps.tumblr.com/post/156361937301/dont-look-for-hope-where-there-isnt-any (ch. 16)  
> -http://letsallbecalmchaps.tumblr.com/post/157619641381/treacherousthoughts-this-is-how-the-space-between (post ch. 16/the true ending)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A matter of fact](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805855) by [gigiree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree)




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